Conversations with the Reverend Hayes
by ICanStopAnytime
Summary: Eric Taylor finds a confidant. A companion piece to "The Pastor's Daughter."
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** To the guest reviewer who on my last story said, "I hope you write professionally one day," I actually already sort-of do. While I now self-publish under a penname (Molly Taggart) for greater control, I also have three commercially published books that were put out by a small press publisher. You can find a list of all these books on my profile. They are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, and other such online stores. Some of the Molly Taggart books were inspired by FNL fanfiction I wrote in the past (stories no longer in the archives), though they have been thoroughly rewritten so as to no longer have any direct connection with the FNL world. I hope you will give one of my books, under either name, a try.

 **Conversations with the Reverend Hayes**

 _This series of vignettes starts simultaneously with "The Pastor's Daughter." It has no overarching plot and will just be a collection of conversations between Eric and Tami's father. I plan 4-5 chapters._

 **[*]**

"That doesn't look like homework," Mr. Taylor said, and Eric quickly closed the sports biography he'd been reading. He was sitting at the far end of the bar at his father's place, Taylor's, where he'd been drinking New Coke. His father had gotten advanced samples from his distributor, before the product officially hit the market, and Mr. Taylor said he didn't think the fad would last long, so he was going to buy up and store a large supply of the old stuff before they made the switch. Rum and New Coke, Mr. Taylor said, didn't have quite the right ring to it.

"It's free reading," Eric insisted, "for English class. Mrs. Connor wants us to do an hour a day."

"Uh-huh," Mr. Taylor said skeptically. "When you aren't performing your taxi duties, son, I expect you to be _studying_."

"Yes, sir. I _am_ , sir." It was opening week at the bar, so his father was all eyes this Saturday, but Eric expected him to be working on owner-type stuff in the back room or at home on future Saturdays. Then he could read whatever he wanted.

"The Reverend Hayes needs a ride." Eric's father nodded to the other end of the bar, where the Reverend sat, flanked by two men, laughing and talking. Mr. Taylor shook his head. "I'm not sure we should visit his church again. I would expect a Reverend to know his limits better, but so many people lack discipline."

"Well, you kind of depend on that for a living, don't you?" Eric asked.

His father glared at him.

"I'm sure this isn't typical for him," Eric said. "I saw those guys, you know, buying him pints."

"Go drive the man home, son. And take my car. Your pick-up isn't presentable."

"Well it was the best I could do with my own money." God knows his father wasn't going to help him buy a car. Well, the man _did_ pay for the insurance, Eric had to admit.

Mr. Taylor's Buick was a mere two years old, and it was sparkling clean. Mr. Taylor vacuumed it twice a week and made Eric wax it by hand twice a month.

"Nice set of wheels," the Reverend said as he slid into the front passenger seat. His gray-blue eyes were sparkling and he had a sort of sloppy grin on his face.

"Yes, sir. Reverend. Sir."

"Call me Edward!" the Reverend insisted, but Eric assumed he only said it because he was buzzed, and he had no intention of calling the man Edward. "Your father runs a fine establishment. It's far better than the Drunken Kickoff was."

"You used to go to the Drunken Kickoff?" Eric asked in surprise as he started the car. That bar didn't have the finest reputation and had been known to be the scene of many a police report. Taylor's was a different sort of establishment, one might even say family friendly, at least before 9 PM, when Taylor's put up the "over 19 only" signs.

"The Bible says, be _in_ this world, but not _of_ this world. Can't be in this world without being in this world, now can you?" The Reverend blinked. "Did I say that right?"

"I think so, sir. Reverend. Sir." Eric was on the street now. "Where do you live?"

"The parsonage is on Main Street, about a mile from my church, if you remember where that is."

"Yeah, I do. Sir. Reverend – "

"- Stop with the Reverend Sir, nonsense, young man. Or at least pick one or the other."

"Yes….sir."

"Your father's something else isn't he?"

"Uh…"

"Must be a hard man to live with."

Eric laughed. He couldn't help it, despite the weird bluntness of the buzzed Reverend. His father _was_ hard to live with. "Sometimes, yeah."

"Your mother's a pretty thing though."

Eric was less comfortable with this pronouncement. "Yes," he said, but said it with a tone of irritation mingled with a hint of warning.

"So's my wife," the Revered said. "Linda has legs that don't quit."

Eric reached for the radio. "Would you like to listen to something?" he asked, just to get the Reverend off the subject of his wife's legs. "The Christian station?"

"God no! They play the most insipid music. It's like they take mediocre pop songs and just replace _baby_ with _Jesus_. Put on the classical station."

"Yes, sir. Reverend. Sir." Eric tuned to the classical station.

"What music do you like?"

"Uh…southern rock," Eric answered. "Like the Allman Brothers. Lynard Skynard. And general rock n' roll, too. Well, classic rock really. I don't like much modern stuff."

"Classic rock? Rock hasn't been around long enough to be _classic_."

"Well, you know," Eric said. "The Beatles, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, The – "

"- My God!" the Reverend exclaimed. "I feel so old. How can any of that be considered _classic_ already?"

"It's just what they call it."

The Reverend leaned forward and turned up the Beethoven symphony that was drifting from the radio. He hummed a long for a minute, and then said, " _This_ is classic."

"Yeah, but it's not rock."

"You don't like it?"

"I don't dislike it," Eric told him.

"This is the basis of heavy metal music right here."

"I don't really like heavy metal music," Eric said. "Unless you count Led Zeppelin."

"Well _obviously_ you count Led Zeppelin!" the Reverend insisted. "Hey, where are we?"

"On 27. We'll be at Main Street here soon."

"Don't take the exit. Go all the way down to South Rankin and then loop back around. I need to sober up a little. I can't let my wife see me like this."

"Uh…"

"I'll give you an extra good tip."

"A'ight. Whatever you want, sir," Eric said. "Reverend."

"Thank God I haven't gotten my doctorate yet!" the Reverend exclaimed. "Then that would _really_ be a mouthful for you, wouldn't it? Dr. Sir. Reverend, Sir doctor." He chuckled to himself.

Eric drove past the Main Street exit.

"You got a girlfriend?" the Reverend asked him.

"Uh…no. I did. Back in Houston. But she broke up with me a couple weeks ago. Right before school started."

"Now what did she go and do that for? You seem like a polite, good-looking fellow."

"She found someone else she wanted to date who was…you know… _there_. In Houston. Not _here_. In Rankin."

"Yes, well, distance will do that to couples. Don't worry. Lots of pretty girls here in Rankin."

"I don't want a pretty girl in Rankin though," Eric said. "I want Lisa." Once he'd said it, he couldn't believe he had. That was a little personal.

"You feel that way now. You won't in six to twelve weeks, I guarantee you."

This irritated Eric. Lisa had ripped his heart out while it was still beating. She'd promised they'd stay together long distance, that she would drive up to see his Homecoming game and accompany him to the dance, that she'd eagerly wait for him to visit her on weekends when he could manage it. But four days before school started, she'd ended it all with nothing but a phone call. He'd gone to the Homecoming dance with his teammate, a wide receiver everyone called _Father Jack,_ and then Jack had ditched him to flirt with some girl on the volleyball team who didn't even seem to notice Jack liked her.

Eric had danced with a few girls, none of whom particularly interested him, until Anita came gunning for him. He didn't know what to make of that girl. She was pretty, sure, but who the hell just up and offered a guy a blow job like that? Once he realized she was serious, he'd almost thought of taking her up on the offer - it would serve a two-fold purpose - he'd feel a sense of revenge against Lisa (look how quick I can score with someone else!) and he'd be able to let off some steam. After all, blow jobs felt really good. He'd never actually had one from anyone but Lisa before, but he was pretty sure it would feel good no matter what girl was doing it, and Anita Nisbeth apparently had a good amount of experience. But he was also pretty sure he'd feel like a jerk afterwards, even though she was the one offering. And what if Lisa changed her mind, decided she'd been a fool, and begged Eric to take her back? He'd feel like an ass, going back to her after he'd let some random girl do that to him. Lisa wouldn't respect him. He probably wouldn't even respect himself.

"You're wrong," Eric replied. He wasn't going to be over Lisa anytime soon. "We were together two years."

The Reverend chuckled and then apologized. "Sorry. That's a long time for someone your age, I realize. That's over half of your dating life so far, I imagine. But when you've been married over twenty years, you'll see how comical that sounds. How old are you?"

"I'll be 18 in February."

"I'm 46. Perspective."

Eric was a bit surprised by the Reverend's age. He would have guessed 56. The man's hair was practically silver. His face, however, was young. More like 40.

"Another girl will come along sometime in the next month or two and catch your fancy, Eric. Mark my word. This Lisa girl will be a distant memory by Valentine's day."

"Maybe you've just never been in love with someone who callously crushed your heart," Eric said bitterly. He hadn't meant to speak to the Reverend disrespectfully, but the man was pushing his buttons.

"I dated a girl for two years once, and I was smitten. Positively smitten. And when I went away to seminary, she dumped me for my older brother. Now _that_ smarts, young man. _That_ smarts. But guess what? I went to a revival two months after I swore I would never speak to my brother again, two months after I swore I would never love another girl again, and my eyes fell on a very lovely young lady who was playing the piano. And that woman became my wife. And my brother is now my best friend, and he's married to that girl who broke my heart."

This intrigued Eric, and softened his prior irritation. "That must make for interesting Thanksgivings. Is your wife jealous?"

"No. She wouldn't give me the satisfaction of being jealous."

Eric wasn't sure what to say to that.

The Reverend laughed. "We've had our ups and downs. You will too, when you've been married over twenty years."

Eric had reached South Rankin. "Can I loop back round now? My dad's going to wonder what took me so long, especially if someone else needs a ride."

"Go ahead," the Reverend said. "I'll just try to sneak in while she's preoccupied with cooking dinner."

When he'd pulled to a stop at the curb outside the townhouse the Reverend said was the parsonage, Eric fished in the pocket of his khakis. He pulled out a package of mint Tic Tacs and offered them to the Reverend.

"Ah, you're a clever one, young man," the Reverend said, pouring three into his palm and popping them in his mouth. "Is this what you do before going home to Mom and Dad after the football parties?"

"No, sir. Reverend. Sir."

Reverend Hayes laughed. He handed the tic tacs back to Eric. "Thanks for the ride." He opened the door and stepped out. He was about to walk away when he leaned down in the open window. Sorry. I forgot your tip." He reached in his pockets, pulled out his wallet, and apparently found it empty. He put it back.

"It's a'ight. You don't - "

"- Here's your tip," the Reverend interrupted him. "Find a pretty girl, take her out, get her the back of a dark movie theater if you have to. Get over this Lisa individual and get on with your life. You're not even quite eighteen. Enjoy your youth while you still can. That's my tip."

And then he shut the car door.


	2. Chapter 2

Eric sighted in the dart, one eye closed. He moved his wrist back and forth and then released. The point lodged just outside the bullseye. The Reverend had beaten him once again.

If Eric's father had seen that throw, he would have told Eric he wasn't trying hard enough, that he couldn't let himself be beaten by a forty-something man.

"I hate my father." He could say that to the Reverend. For some reason, it seemed he could say anything to the Reverend, without fear of judgment. Even when he was disagreeing with Eric, the Reverend never seemed to be _judging_ him. Sometimes, when they were playing darts or pool in the bar, it felt like Eric was unscrewing a tight cap somewhere within in his heart, just enough to let off a little dangerous steam.

"Don't do that," the Reverend told him. "Don't make that mistake."

"What mistake?" Eric walked forward and ripped the darts out of the target. He brought them back and set them down on the high table, next to the Reverend's half-finished pint.

"Your father is just a man. With human failings and his own set of demons."

The Reverend had stood up to Eric's father in the church doorway before. Why was he defending him now? "You've seen how he is," Eric grumbled.

"How would you like your kids to think of you with such spite one day?"

"They won't. I won't be that kind of father."

"Oh, they will. At some point, at least briefly, they will. At some point, you're going to clash with your children. They are going to disappoint you. And you are going to disappoint them."

Eric knew Tami had disappointed the Reverend. She'd told him, vaguely, about her "rebellious year." It was hard for Eric to imagine her rebelling, though. She got good grades. She didn't run around with guys; she just had a single steady boyfriend. When she spoke of her father, she always spoke with respect. She was poised, beautiful, intelligent, respectful, kind...She could be overly blunt, but she was honest. He felt he could trust her. Tami could be awfully meddlesome and sure of herself, though. She was starting to drive him crazy with her efforts to fix him up. Maybe if he told her Lisa wanted to get back together with him, she'd let up.

Of course, Eric hadn't decided yet whether or not he was going to take Lisa back. He'd dreamed of that phone call for weeks and weeks, and then, when it had finally come, he hadn't felt anything but a sort of vengeful self-satisfaction, and then even that satisfaction had been trailed by a bitter aftertaste – a fear that he was nothing but a consolation prize.

"It's good you want to be a better father than your own father," Reverend Hayes continued. "I wanted to be a better father than mine. And clearly your father, whether you appreciate it or not, is a _much_ better father than his own stepfather was."

Eric had told the Reverend, the last time they played darts, about his father's history of childhood neglect.

"If every generation would make that effort," the Reverend said, "if every generation would strive to be better than their parents, the world would always continue to improve." He sipped his beer and set it down. "But you're human too, Eric. And you'll make your mistakes, even if they're smaller than your father's. And you'll want your children to forgive you."

Eric lined up the darts on the table and tried not to show his annoyance. He had thought the Reverend understood what he was going through at home, how bad it was to have to listen to his father's criticism, how hard it was to meet his unyielding standards. And now the Reverend was _defending_ him? Why? "He never lets up on me, though!"

"He provides for you, Eric. He keeps a roof over your head. Food on your table. A clean house. He's reliable. He's _there_. He comes to all of your games."

"Yeah, to criticize me! To brag about me if I win, and to dissect my every failing if I lose."

"He's faithful to your mother."

"He's not very affectionate with her," Eric said. "And he rides roughshod all over her."

"Because half the time, she lets him."

Eric sighed and shook his head.

"He's not violent with her, is he?" the Reverend asked.

"No. Never."

"Or you?"

"No," Eric said.

"I didn't think so." He took another sip of his beer. "And there's probably more to your parents' relationship than you see, a reason she loves him, and a _way_ that he loves her. Children seldom know their parents well."

"I know him well enough to know he's a pain in the - " Eric stopped. He knew he couldn't talk _that way_ about his father in front of the Reverend.

The Reverend's pint clinked back down against the high table. "You'll be out of his house soon enough. You'll be your own man, calling your own shots. Hold on until then. Hold on, and don't make the mistake of hating him. Because if you do, that hatred could come to define you."

Eric grunted, gathered up his darts, and turned toward the board. He threw one hard. It lodged in the wall.

"See what I mean?" the Reverend asked. "What good does that anger do you? Let it go."

Eric didn't want to talk about his father or his anger anymore. So he said, "Some volleyball game this morning, huh?"

"Yes. My daughter played really well, didn't she?"

Now Eric wished he hadn't mentioned the game. He didn't want to talk about Tami, not with her father. He'd been spending a lot of time with her lately, walking her home from the coffee shop. He probably shouldn't keep doing that, seeing as she was Mo's girl. He'd done it to be the polite the first time, but he felt like it had grown into something...more intimate.

He thought about Tami far too often these days. He'd thought about her just this morning, in the shower, about what her breasts looked like under that tight shirt she'd worn in school on Friday, what they'd feel like in the palms of his hands, what she'd sound like if he flicked his tongue across her nipple. That didn't mean anything. He cycled a lot of different pretty girls through his fantasies, girls for whom he felt no romantic interest. His fantasies meant nothing. He imagined doing things with girls he'd never actually choose to do in real life, even if he had the opportunity. He wasn't proud of it, but it was just his mind, and he couldn't help it if his male teenage hormones were constantly raging with no steady outlet. So he thought about girls a lot - what they might look like naked, what they might feel like underneath him, what they might sound like when he was doing all sorts of things to their bodies. But Tami got cycled into those fantasies more often than most. He supposed there wasn't any harm in that, really. Over half the guys on the team probably had sexual fantasies about her. She was gorgeous.

The sexual fantasies were no risk. But those walks, those talks - _those_ might be a risk. Because Tami was more than a gorgeous body. She was clever and fun and friendly and open and he was starting to seriously look forward to those walks. In fact, he was starting to fantasize about _holding her hand_. And while a guy could be forgiven for fantasizing about bending a teammate's gorgeous girlfriend over the desk in Coach's office, it was surely crossing a line to fantasize about holding her hand.

He wondered what Tami would think of him getting back together with Lisa. He should tell her he was thinking about it the next time they walked home together. Maybe it would even make her jealous.

Who was he kidding? Why would Tami be jealous? She was constantly trying to get him to date some girl. She wasn't the least bit interested in him _that_ way.

"Yeah, sure," Eric answered. "Tami's a good player."

"I noticed that after the game you were talking to a girl in the stands. Finally mending your heart and moving on from Lisa?"

What girl? Eric tried to think what he was talking about. He must mean when Kimberley came up to talk to them, but he let Jack do most of the talking. He didn't understand why Jack didn't just ask Kimberley out. She would probably say yes. Why not? Jack was a smart, good-looking, honorable guy. Any girl would be an idiot to turn him down. Sure, he had that weirdly devout Catholic thing going, what with mass five mornings a week, but he'd make any girl a good boyfriend, and isn't that what most girls really wanted? A good boyfriend?

Eric sometimes wondered if it even really mattered to them which guy it was. He thought maybe girls liked the whole concept of having a boyfriend more than they actually liked the boys they were dating. Maybe that's why Lisa had dated him, and maybe that was why Tami was dating Mo. It had to be. Because he just didn't get what Tami saw in that guy.

Maybe she saw a different side of him. She wasn't on the field, listening to him make excuses for his own mistakes. She wasn't in the locker room, hearing him brag about how much he could make her moan. And Mo had his virtues. Mo was friendly, unlike Eric, who had sometimes been accused of being stand-offish. Mo was outgoing, unlike Eric, who usually had trouble talking to people he didn't know well. Mo was the popular kind of fun, unlike Eric, who didn't even much like going to parties. And Mo was a man's-man, unlike Eric, who'd never gotten very accurate with a rifle, no matter how many times he'd tried, and who wouldn't know how to skin a deer even if by some fluke he got one.

Yeah, now that he thought of it, even if Tami dumped Mo, she'd probably never date _him_.

Why shouldn't he just get back together with Lisa? It wasn't like there was anyone else he wanted to date. Not anyone else who also wanted to date him.

"Actually," Eric told the Reverend. "I'm thinking of getting back together with Lisa. She called and said she wants me back."

"Lisa?"

Eric nodded.

The Reverend made a gesture with his eyebrows. That man could talk with just his face, and Eric got that the Reverend was saying, _don't be an idiot._

"I don't see why I shouldn't," Eric countered defensively. "I'm not dating anyone right now."

"How's that going to work any better the second time around?" the Reverend asked him.

Eric shrugged.

"Do you still love her?"

"I still miss her."

"Her, or the affection?"

"I'm not one of these guys who's just interested in getting laid." Sure, he _thought_ about sex a lot, but he'd never had it with anyone but Lisa, and he didn't want to have it outside of a dating relationship. He'd been taught it was a serious thing with serious consequences, and whatever his fantasies might be, he didn't take the actual act lightly.

"That's not what I meant," the Reverend told him. "But is it _her_ you miss, or do you just miss the feeling? And can that feeling be rekindled?"

It was true Eric no longer felt the same way about Lisa he once had. He'd been madly in love with her, or at least he'd _imagined_ himself madly in love with her. And yet they'd never been all that emotionally intimate, when he thought about it. Hell, he'd told Tami things he'd never told Lisa. "I don't know," he admitted.

"There's nothing wrong with giving someone a second chance. But it's also okay to walk away. You aren't obligated to take her back just because she wants to get back together. And you should probably ask yourself _why_ you're thinking of taking her back. Don't do it for the wrong reasons. That wouldn't be fair to her."

"She's the one who dumped me!"

"I know. But that's doesn't give you an excuse to stop being a gentleman."

Eric toyed with a green dart on the table, rolling it forward and then back. "We might be able to rekindle it," he said. "The feelings."

"You really think so?"

"Eric," said a passing waiter. "You've got to taxi Dr. Morgan. He says he wants you to take him to his office."

"His office?" Eric asked. "If he's too buzzed to drive, isn't he too buzzed to be filling cavities?"

The waiter shrugged and walked away.

"I better go," Eric said.

The Reverend lifted his pint. "And I better get a new dentist."


	3. Chapter 3

Eric slid the pool stick between his fingers, back and forth, his eye on the white ball. There was a satisfying smack, and then a crack of balls, and the 6 rolled, but it didn't quite make it into the pocket.

"Damnit," he muttered, and then apologized for swearing in front of the Reverend. He was glad the Reverend had stopped by today, on a Sunday evening no less. Eric hadn't been able to taxi Saturday, because he was at the play-offs, so his father had put him to work this evening instead.

The Reverend rubbed chalk on his pool stick. "I'm glad you didn't lose your resolve when Lisa started crying," he said. He lined up his shot. "I'm glad you didn't go crawling back to her just because she whistled." He hit the ball. Crack. Smack. Roll. His ball went in the pocket.

Why was the Reverend so good at pub games, anyway?

The man lined up his next shot. "4, corner pocket," he said, but missed this time. With the hand that wasn't holding the stick, he picked up his pint. "So, do you have your eye on someone else, now that Lisa is officially out of your life? Is there a little filly who's caught your fancy?"

Eric didn't look at the Reverend. He looked at the balls. He wasn't about to tell the man that he was afraid he might be falling for his daughter. That was at least part of the reason Eric had told Lisa it was over for good. It wasn't that he believed Tami was going to come running to him if and when she finally dumped Mo. It was just that, if he felt this way about Tami, he probably didn't have much real feeling left for Lisa. And how was he going to rekindle that feeling long distance, when he was always scanning for Tami in the school hallways, or glancing at the door of the coffee shop, hoping she would walk through so he'd have a chance to walk her home?

She had to dump Mo eventually. Tami was a smart girl. Sooner or later, she had to realize Mo didn't deserve her. Eric wasn't absolutely positive Mo was cheating, but he was becoming increasingly sure the QB2 was turning to Anita for some fun on the side. Tami would figure it out in time. He hated to think about the pain that would cause her, but, at the same time, he delighted to think she would be free of Mo.

"Hmmmm?" the Reverend asked with a light smile.

"No one at the moment," Eric lied. The ball jumped when he hit it and landed nowhere near his target. "I suck at this game."

"Well," the Reverend told him. "They don't have scholarships for billiards." He knocked two balls into the side pocket before missing a shot.

"Too bad they don't," Eric said. "You could get your doctorate."

"I hear some places will let you teach full-time even with just a master's if you have enough publications and life experience."

"You want to teach?"

"Well, you talking so much about becoming a coach and a teacher one day...it's got me remembering how much I enjoyed being a T.A. when I was earning my master's. But I'm not going anywhere until my youngest is done with high school. I don't want her to have to switch horses in midstream, start over, walk away from her friends."

"It's nice you think of your kids like that," Eric said. "My dad never thought of me the four times he moved us."

"I'm sure he did think of you. I'm sure he never bought a bar without researching the public schools and the football teams."

Eric leaned over the pool table and positioned his stick. "Well, yeah, because he wants me to turn in a brag-worthy performance."

"Did it ever occur to you he's proud of you? Or that he cares about your success?"

Eric smacked the cue ball. It hit his four, which rolled lamely and stopped right before the pocket. "When and why did you become such a fan of my father?"

"I'm not a fan of your father. But I _am_ a father myself. And I'd like to think my own children would judge me with mercy."

Eric rested the end of his stick on the barroom floor. "What do your daughters have to judge you for?"

"My youngest thinks I'm ruining her life with my strictness. I beg to differ. But my eldest...I admit there were times I should have been more aware of what she was up to and what sort of guidance she needed from me as a father. "

"Well, see, there you go right there. I can't imagine my father ever admitting he was wrong about anything." Eric nodded to the table. "You're up."

As the Reverend lined up his shot, he said, "I bet your parents feel fortunate about your scholarship offers."

"I don't know that my dad feels _fortunate_. It was just his expectation that I'd get a full ride. My big sister did - for academics."

"Well football scholarships don't grow on trees. That's an _accomplishment_." The Reverend sunk a shot.

"Thanks for saying so. It's not final, yet, though. It's all just talk at this point. But we're headed to State. As long as I don't botch that up, and I don't see why I would, I'm sure A&M will make it final."

"A&M's a good school."

"They've got a good team," Eric agreed. "I mean, they don't have a coaching program like TMU, so that kind of sucks - "

"Vocabulary."

"So that's kind of unfortunate, but you know...Division I."

"And that's your first priority? The division?"

Eric shrugged. "No one takes TMU's football team too seriously. I want to coach, but I want to play college ball too."

"How much play time would you get on team like the Aggies, verses on TMU's team?"

"Well, I'd likely get more playtime at TMU."

"So, if you want to _play_ college ball..." The Reverend sunk another shot. He'd cleaned up the table now, and won the game.

"I want to be respected," Eric said. When they returned their sticks to the wall, Eric noticed the bartender motioning in his direction. "I think I've got a passenger."

"Well, while you're driving your drunk home," the Reverend said, "take a moment to consider a question."

"What's that?"

"What do you most want to be respected _for_?"

"I'll muse on it," Eric promised before he went to help his passenger to the car, but he would forget the question until after the State Championships, until that moment when he went from hero to loser in the halls of Rankin High.


	4. Chapter 4

Eric was glad to see Tami's relationship with Mo crumble that Thursday before he left for State, but it felt like a steak knife was twisting in his heart when he watched _her_ crumble.

She'd even called herself a whore. What the hell was that? She said something about having had sex with some random guy at a party when she was fifteen. That didn't sound at all like her. It shocked him to learn that, but he did his best not to show it. Whatever she'd done then, she wasn't that girl _now_. Why was she tearing into herself? Mo was the asshole here!

Eric offered what reassurance he could, but it didn't seem to help. In the end, Tami turned her anger on him.

He didn't know Tami could get this angry. He'd suspected her of passion - mostly the _good_ kind of passion - but he'd never foreseen anything quite like this.

Tami had just accused him of telling her father Mo was cheating. "It was a set-up! My dad set me up to find out Mo."

"I can't imagine him doing that, Tami, but if he did, it was because he had his own suspicions. We _never_ talk about you in that bar. I swear." Well, _almost_ never. They certainly hadn't talked about Eric's suspicion that Mo was cheating.

"You're full of shit! You're a liar. You're _all_ liars." She threw open the door to his pick-up like it was a prison keeping her chained to him, like she wanted to be rid of him forever.

Eric was about to pound his steering wheel when he saw that the Reverend had stepped out of the parsonage. The man exchanged words with Tami and then came pacing toward the truck, his face clouded with rage and disappointment.

Tami was inside by the time the Reverend closed the passenger's door. "I'm going to give you one chance to defend yourself," he said. "I hope to God you aren't responsible for whatever tempest is going on in my daughter right now."

"No, sir," Eric said, though he did seem to be a part of it, somehow. Tami seemed just as mad at him as she was at Mo. It wasn't fair of her. She had some nerve! Eric could feel himself getting angry at her anger, but then his compassion for Tami pushed back against that anger.

"What happened?"

"That's for her to say, Reverend. It's not my place."

"Damnit, Eric! I'm not asking for town gossip! This is my daughter!"

Eric gripped the steering wheel tightly and stared out the windshield.

"I need to know what's going on before I try to talk to her. So tell me."

"She caught Mo getting a blow job from Anita Nisbeth in the stairwell."

The Reverend's fist came down hard on the dashboard. Eric closed his eyes as the front of the pick-up shook. Why had he been so detailed? Anita Nisbeth? A blow job? The stairwell? He should have just said Tami caught Mo cheating and left it at that.

When Eric opened his eyes, the Reverend was rubbing his fist and breathing deliberately in and out – calming himself. Eric had never seen the man angry before. Ever. But maybe, somewhere beneath that veneer of ministerial calmness, he had a passionate streak as wide as Tami's. The Reverend had more control, however. His jaw was still clamped with anger, but he rested his hand on his knee and spoke calmly. "How long has he been cheating on her?"

"I don't know, sir. It's not like he ever talked to me about it."

"But you've seen them together before? Him and this…Anita."

"Not like that."

"But in a way that suggested to you they might be involved?"

"Well, it's just…guys don't usually hang around Anita unless they want…you know…something from her."

"Ah. She's that kind of girl."

Eric swallowed.

"Do you hang around Anita?"

"No, sir!"

"I didn't think so." He sighed heavily. "I certainly didn't think they were bound for the altar. I thought Tami was too deep for Mo and that he's grown a bit arrogant since he made varsity. I thought they'd eventually break up, but I didn't think it would be because he cheated on her with some strumpet."

As upset as Eric was, he almost laughed at the word _strumpet_. The Reverend could be so weird in his word choice sometimes. He coughed instead. And then he wondered what the Reverend would call a guy who slept around.

"Although…I guess I've always suspected Mo had a bit of the rake in him."

Well, that answered that question. "Rake's putting it mildly," Eric said.

"You're right. A girl knows – or ought to know – what she's getting into with a rake, but Mo presented a different face to Tami, and he gave her a promise. That's just an out and out asshole."

Eric blinked to hear the Reverend swear.

"I didn't think of him as that sort," the Reverend Hayes continued, "and yet, the fact that he cheated isn't precisely shocking me. But it does disappoint me. He used to be a choir boy, you know."

"Mo?"

The Reverend nodded. "I mean literally as well as figuratively. When he still attended our church, he sung in the choir. He was great with the old ladies, too."

"Well, he still does a mean karaoke." Eric had listened to Mo sing at a party once and had felt jealous that his own talent seemed confined to throwing a ball.

"What do I say to her?" The Reverend asked. "What do you say to your little girl when she's had her heart torn out through her throat?"

"I don't know, sir." But Eric sure hoped the Reverend came up with _something_. Maybe, if he did, Tami would start to heal. Even though Eric hated what she'd just said to him, he hated even more to see her in so much pain. He felt like an ass for having wanted her to find out, for harboring a secret hope that she would figure it out, for fantasizing about being there to pick up the pieces of her shattered heart when she did. He'd been there, all right, but being there was no fairy tale. It was ugly, and Tami wasn't looking for a shoulder to cry on. She was looking for a punching bag.

"Thank you for getting her home safely," Reverend Hayes said.

"Sure."

"You two are friends?"

"I guess," Eric said. "I mean, we were. I think she hates me now, because I didn't tell her what I suspected."

"She'll get over that."

"Will she?" Eric asked. "Because she said some pretty nasty things to me."

"I take it her anger made you angry?"

"A little, yeah."

"Remember how broken up you were about Lisa when I first met you?"

Eric half shrugged.

"If you had caught Lisa in the act," the Reverend asked, "think maybe you'd hit the nearest target, too?"

Eric looked out the windshield. "Maybe."

The Reverend was silent for a couple of minutes. Eric glanced at him. How long was he going to sit here in his pick-up?

"I better know what I'm going to say before I go in there," the Reverend explained.

"You always seem to know what to say."

The Reverend laughed. Then he gritted his teeth again. "Are you and Mo friends?"

"We're teammates." Shit. He'd almost forgotten he had State tomorrow. He was going to have to put Tami's suffering out of his mind. And he was going to have to find a way to get along with Mo.

"I know, but you've hardly ever mentioned him when you've talked to me about being on the team."

"He's your daughter's boyfriend. Was." Was. That was over now, Eric was sure. Mo and Tami were at an end. He'd had to read a T.S. Eliot poem in English class yesterday. He hadn't understood it. But one line leaped out at him now - _In my end is my beginning._

 _"_ So I take it that means you don't have anything kind to say about him, so, like your mother taught you, you said nothing at all."

"Well, I...we don't get along real great is all."

"Because you became QB1 instead of him?"

"Yeah." And also because of Tami, though he didn't say that.

"What did he say when Tami confronted him?"

"She didn't. She hasn't yet. He didn't know that she saw. He came back to practice and she just...I guess she just sat and cried."

"For an hour?"

"I guess so." Now Eric let out a heavy sigh. Jesus. An hour? He wanted to kill Mo - to kill him, not get out there on that field with him. How in the hell was he going to be able to look at Mo tomorrow without tackling him?


	5. Chapter 5

Eric tried to throw the blue bean bag like a football at first, but that wasn't getting it in the hole often enough, so now he was tossing it underhanded. The bag went straight in.

The Reverend shifted the score on the board, pushing up the ticker. Eric was ahead by one. He might actually win a game against the man today.

The minister tossed his red bag up into the air and caught it in his hand. "I'm glad you and Tami have patched things up. She can really use a friend right now."

Eric hoped the Reverend didn't suspect he wanted _more_ than friendship. "So could I," Eric said. "I don't have a lot of friends since botching State."

"Don't you have the same friends you had before?"

Eric chuckled. "Yeah. I guess that's the definition of friendship, huh?"

The Reverend put his finger on his nose. Then like a baseball player readying for the pitch, he geared up and threw. The bean bag landed just outside the hole, but didn't slide in. "So you're thinking TMU now?"

"Yeah," Eric answered. "Since A&M isn't offering me a scholarship anymore. TMU's got everything I want, except a Division I team. And they're still giving me a full ride. But my dad really wants me to go to A&M. And he said he'll sell the bar to make sure I can do it."

"What do _you_ want?" the Reverend asked.

"I don't want to be indebted to him."

"It does seem like that would give him something to hold over your head."

Eric prepared to toss his bag. "Especially if I don't do as well on the team as he expects." The bag went sailing. It landed right in the hole again. "Yes!" he cried and pumped his fist. With that shot, he'd won the cornhole match. The pair went to gather their bean bags. "And I get that it's a generous offer," Eric said. "I mean he loves this bar."

" _I_ love this bar," the Reverend replied. "Don't let him sell it."

"Oh, he's going to sell it either which way," Eric told him. "Come June. It's just a question of whether or not he uses the proceeds to buy a new one or to send me to A&M. If he sends me to A&M, he'll go back to managing. And if I _don't_ take his money, he'll probably buy another bar. Either way, they're moving to Dallas. My mom wants to be near my sister."

"And your father would make that move for her?"

Eric shrugged.

"See, he's not as lacking in fondness as you imagine he is."

"There's no imagination involved," Eric told him. "You've seen him. You know how he is."

"I've seen him, yes. And I've seen far worse. The things I've seen, Eric, in twenty years of ministry…you wouldn't believe half of them if I told you. You'll see them too, though, when you're a high school coach. You'll find you're a bit of a minister yourself, whether you want to be or not."

"Woe to the kid who turns to me for advice," Eric joked. He sat down on a chair across form the Reverend, who had taken a seat at a high table and resumed drinking his beer.

"You say that now," the Reverend told him, "but you'll have more perspective by the time you're the head coach of a high school. How long do you think that will take you?"

"I don't know. All my coaches have been old."

"Coach Manner is only thirty-eight."

"Uh…" Eric smiled.

"That's old to you."

"That's two decades away. Seems a long road when I think about it."

"But your father taught you to work steadily, to work hard, and to trade up. Like he did with his bars."

"Yeah," Eric agreed. He fiddled with the empty root beer bottle he'd left on the table.

"See. He's imparted some good to you, hasn't he?"

Eric shrugged. "I don't think he sees me being a head coach of a high school as equivalent to owning a bar. And he bought his first bar when he was only thirty. I think he expects me to be head coach of a college by the time I'm thirty-five."

"Well that's not a very realistic expectation, is it?" Eric felt reassured by the Reverend's words. "How many college head coaches are thirty-five?"

"He thinks everyone should be able to do what he did," Eric grumbled. "Set their mind to something they're good at and succeed like gangbusters within fifteen years. He still thinks I should be aiming to play for the NFL, but since I've got my mind set on coaching, well, now he thinks I should be coaching the Aggies."

"That probably makes you feel like you're living under a lot of pressure."

"Yeah, it does."

"But…" The Reverend turned his pint. "Do you – I mean, you, yourself – let's leave your father out of this…Do _you_ want to be a college coach one day?"

"Yeah, sure I do. I just wish he wouldn't be so disappointed in me if I failed at that. I just…" Eric sighed. He bit down on his back teeth because there was this wave of emotion rising up in him that made him feel weak. "I just wish I didn't have to earn his love." He looked down the neck of his root beer, into the blackness within. If the Reverend told him he was wrong about his father again, he thought he was going to throw that bottle against the wall.

But the Reverend didn't. He just said, "That must be a painful feeling, to feel like you have to earn your father's love."

"Yeah, it is." Eric swallowed and looked at the billiard table.

"Eric," the Reverend said quietly, "your father may not know how to express his love naturally."

Eric looked back. "What do you mean?"

"Expressing it may be a learned exercise for him. He may not know what you need him to say or do. He may imagine that his high expectations for you _are_ an expression of his love." The Reverend ringed his pint with a finger, and then licked off the suds. "When was the last time you told your father you loved _him_?"

"I'm not sure I do love him," Eric confessed.

"And why's that?"

"I've told you all the things he says to me! All the criticism. All the demands! You've seen the things he says, in the doorway of the church. I shouldn't have made that fumble, I should have thrown some pass, I should have…should have! Nothing less than perfect is good enough for him!"

The Reverend tilted his head to the side, as if he was considering Eric's words. "So what you're saying is, he's failed to earn your love."

"I…" Eric's mouth hung open as he processed what the Reverend was saying. "That's not the same!"

"Okay, it's not the same," the Reverend agreed. "But you get my point?" Just as Eric was trying to think of how to defend his position further, the Reverend changed the subject. "How does Tami seem to you, in school? Is she doing okay?"

"She's picking up the pieces," Eric told him. "You know, she seems sad on and off…but, I think she's slowly getting back to normal." Tami was sitting at his lunch table now. Not next to Mo. Next to _him_. Eric thought there were a few times he'd even made her laugh. Jack left early sometimes, to give them time alone together. He was a good friend like that. Eric hadn't asked Jack to. He just did it.

"Has Mo been trying to win her back?"

"Sure," Eric said.

"Why _sure_?"

"Well, I mean…why wouldn't he want her back?" The Reverend was studying him now, and Eric was afraid his feelings for Tami might grow obvious if they remained on this topic. "I _am_ going to TMU," he said suddenly. "I'm not taking my father's money."

"Well that must be a relief, to have that decided."

"Yeah. It is. But I don't want to tell my dad. I don't know how he's going to react."

"Then tell him over Christmas dinner," the Reverend suggested. "No one can rage too much on the Lord's birthday." He smiled and raised his pint.


	6. Chapter 6

Eric hit the cue ball so hard it slammed into the opposite edge of the table and popped over onto the floor.

The Reverend plucked it up and rolled it back to him. "What are you so worked up about today?"

"I don't know what you mean," Eric said, even though he _was_ worked up. Tami had returned the boots he'd spent weeks worth of savings to buy her, the boots he thought would light up her face. They had, for a day or two. Until she dropped them on the cafeteria table and made it abundantly clear that she didn't want anyone to think they were _dating_. Because if they _were_ dating, well, that would apparently be unacceptable. She was still trying to fix him up with other girls, no matter how many hints he dropped that _Tami_ was his type. But apparently _he_ wasn't _Tami's_ type. He was a _good_ _friend_. If he asked her out, she'd say no. She'd made that clear enough: The boots in a box. On the table. Return to sender.

He hadn't come to school the next day. He didn't want to face Tami after she'd essentially told him it would be an embarrassment to her if people thought they were dating. So he'd driven to Austin to meet his future coach and teammates instead, to sign on the dotted line and make it all official.

"Has your father been giving you a hard time about your trip to TMU?" the Reverend asked.

Eric lined up the cue ball again and made another shot, not quite as hard this time, but the cue ball slammed into his six which slammed into the corner pocket. "Not really. I mean, he keeps dropping hints that I've made the wrong choice, but I think he's more or less accepted my decision."

Eric's father had even let him skip school - probably because he was already accepted to college - and given him a $50 bill when he left Friday morning to help cover the hotel. Of course, he hadn't handed over the money without first saying, _Don't go to some college party and get drunk and do something stupid while you're there._

So of course Eric _had_ gone to a college party, and he _had_ gotten a little bit drunk. Buzzed anyway. And he had brushed up against the edge of doing something stupid, but, in the end, he turned that college sophomore down. He did not take her up on her implied offer of a one night stand. He considered it, as a way to blow off steam, but he didn't even know her. He'd just met her that day. He'd never had casual sex before and he didn't want to start now, just because he was upset about Tami. It might feel good that night, but it probably wouldn't sit right with him in the morning. And Tami would probably lose respect for him if she ever found out. Even if she wasn't going to date him, he still wanted her to respect him. So he'd caught a ride back to his hotel, climbed into a hot shower to clear his head, and tried - but failed - not to fantasize about Tami.

"Then what's eating you?"

Eric took another shot and missed. He leaned his cue stick against the table. What if he did talk to the Reverend about it? He always felt better after talking to the Reverend when he was upset. The man didn't have to know he was talking about his daughter, if Eric didn't tell him. "A girl I really like flashed me the _I just want to be friends_ signal."

"Ah." The balls smacked and one glided into a pocket. "You've never mentioned having your eye on a girl. Is this a recent development?"

"Yeah," he lied, even though it had been a long, slow development.

The Reverend lined up his next shot. "Why do you suppose she's only interested in being friends?"

Eric shrugged. "Because it's not sexy when you screw up at State, I guess."

"Well that sounds like a shallow reason to me." He hit, and missed. "Why would you be attracted to such a shallow girl?"

Tami wasn't shallow. She was one of the least shallow girls he'd ever met. "She's not like that."

"Then why do you think that's why she gave you the red light?"

"I guess I don't," Eric admitted. He was just angry at her implied rejection. He didn't understand why she could fall for Mo and not for him. Maybe she just wasn't attracted to him, for reasons of pure chemistry. Or maybe she still couldn't see the big picture, because she was still hurt, and she just needed more time to heal. Maybe Tami would still come around. After all, it wasn't as though she was rejecting him for someone else. "She's…" If he told the Reverend she was getting over a bad break up, would he guess it was Tami? "She says she's not interested in dating _anyone_ right now."

"Then it has nothing to do with any deficiency in you?"

Eric rubbed chalk on his pool stick. "I guess not."

"Not interested in dating anyone? At all?"

"That's what she said." Eric bent over the table.

"I envy that girl's father. What a relief it would be to me, if neither of my girls had any interest in dating."

Crack. Smack. Eric's ball came close, but didn't quite reach its goal.

"So if she doesn't want to date at all," the Reverend continued, "I suppose that means you have to move on and set your sights on someone else."

"I can't move on."

"That bad, huh? What's so special about her?"

Eric shouldn't have started down this road. Now he had to think of a detour. "I don't know," he said.

"You're never going to successfully woo a girl with _I don't know_ , Eric. You've got to be more articulate than that. I assume she's pretty?"

"Yeah."

The Reverend called his shot and made it before saying, "But I assume there are a lot of pretty girls in your school, so that can't be the bulk of it. Smart?"

"Yeah."

"What else?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

The Reverend scratched his forehead. "Then why did you start talking about it?"

"Well I also stopped."

"That you did." The Reverend leaned over the pool table again.

Eric would have wanted to keep talking about it, if it had been any other girl. He wanted the Reverend's life advice. He certainly couldn't talk to his own father about this sort of thing.

He'd talked some to Jack, but Jack had been little help. He said he thought Tami liked Eric but she just didn't know it yet. _You should take the bull by the horns_ , Jack told him. _Just kiss her. That's when she'll figure out she likes you.  
_

It was odd advice coming from Jack, who had spent weeks of very subtle flirting before he finally asked Kimberley out, and Eric told him so.

 _I wasn't afraid to ask her out_ , Jack insisted. _I just didn't want to date a non-Catholic. But eventually, I had to give in. She's too pretty and funny and fun and smart and sweet and..._

Eric had stopped listening, because they were in the locker bay, and Tami was approaching. Jack followed Eric's gaze, and, in a low whisper, said, _kiss her_.

Eric wanted to kiss Tami something awful, but he was by no means sure that wouldn't earn him a slap across the face. _Don't be an idiot_ , Eric said.

As Tami drew closer, Jack chanted, _Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her, kiss her!_

 _Shut up!_ Eric told him nervously as he slammed his locker door shut, and Jack replaced his chant with a smirk.

"What would you do?" Eric asked the Reverend, who had just missed a shot. "If you really liked a girl, and she didn't like you back?"

"I'd find a girl who really did like me back."

"To make her jealous?"

The Reverend clacked his stick down against the floor. "Eric, I should hope you wouldn't _use_ some girl to make another girl jealous. That's rather cruel, don't you think? To the poor girl whose affections you'd be toying with?"

"Yes, sir. I didn't mean I would do that."

The Reverend grimaced. He tapped his chest. Either he was symbolizing his disapproval or the cheese fries had given him heart burn. "But you thought I was advising it?"

"I misunderstood you. You mean you'd move on. Just like that. Easy as pie."

"I didn't say it would be easy as pie. Unless we're talking rhubarb pie. That takes some work for me to get down."

Eric smiled, despite his feeling of melancholy. "What if you thought there was a chance, though, that she might eventually _start_ to like you the way you like her?"

"Well then I suppose I'd bide my time. For a _time_. Not forever. Not for the rest of my high school career."

Eric nodded.

"And I'd give her some breathing room. I'd just try to be a good friend to her. And a gentleman. Above all, a _gentleman_."

"Would you – " Eric stopped talking because the Reverend had just dropped his pool stick to the ground. It clattered against the barroom floor as the man clutched at his chest and his face contorted. "Reverend?"

Eric's confusion gave way to terror as the man sunk to the floor.

"Reverend!" Eric was on his knees next to Tami's father in an instant. He didn't remember shouting for a waiter to call 911, or what precisely happened next, in what order, but by the time the door to the ambulance slammed shut, and he was sitting in the back of it, off to the side, out of the way of the paramedics, he'd come to his senses enough to realize that Tami might just lose her father today.

Eric might lose her father today.

"Hold on, Rev," he whispered. "Just hold on."

He took several deep breaths and willed himself to be calm. Tami was going to need him to be strong.


	7. Chapter 7

Eric couldn't see out the window, but it seemed they'd been in the ambulance for some time now. "What's taking so long to get to the hospital?" he asked a medic.

"We've been re-routed to Dillon Hospital. Your father's going to need the facilities there."

Eric didn't correct the medic. He didn't correct the hospital worker either when, after he tried to follow the gurney in, she stopped him and said, "You can't go in there with your father. You need to wait out here."

But he finally corrected the woman who brought him the paperwork. "I'm not actually his son. I can't do any of this. I need to call his wife."

Eric hoped Mrs. Hayes would answer the phone, because he dreaded having to give this news to Tami. But Tami answered. He was sure he stumbled over his words. He wasn't the commanding presence he'd planned to be. For a moment, it even sounded like Tami dropped the phone.

By the time the Hayes girls arrived, however, he'd told himself _Tami needs you to be strong_ so many times that he thought maybe he actually was.

And yet, Tami hardly seemed to notice him there. Her mother even made her thank him once. He understood she was in a state of shock, but he hoped his presence was making the whole thing just a little easier for her. It was Mrs. Hayes who leaned hardest on him. He did what he could, talking her through the paperwork and reading her the Bible verses she seemed to need for comfort.

At one point, he took Tami's hand. He did it to comfort her, and he only meant to squeeze it for a moment and then let go, but she held on. His fear for the Reverend and his anxiety for Tami's suffering weaved like tentacles around the delight he felt in the warmth of her flesh, in the intimacy of that modest physical connection.

[*]

Eric walked hesitantly into the room. The heart monitor beeped and blipped. The Reverend was awake. "Hey, Eric," he said cheerfully, clearly more cognizant of his surroundings now than he had been last night. "Have a seat."

Eric drew a chair up by the bed and sat down. He tried not to laugh when he recalled what the Reverend had said the previous night, in his drug-addled haze, about his wife's lovely tits.

"Tami just left a few minutes ago."

"She did?" Eric was sorry to have missed her. They'd talked in church that morning, and she'd seemed genuinely grateful for his help. It had pleased him to see her gratitude. He'd felt a faint hope that maybe their dramatic night together would spark her feelings for him, and then he'd felt horribly guilty for that hope. What was he doing, wishing on a man's almost-grave? The Reverend lay before him now, hair disheveled, looking unusually small and weak in his hospital gown, and that weakness unnerved Eric. "If you're too tired for another visitor- "

"- Stay. I'm bored out my skull here, and my roommate isn't much company. Coma patients so rarely are."

Eric smiled. That was the vibrant Reverend he knew. "A'ight. I'm happy to."

"How was church this morning?"

Tami had looked tired, and worried, but still gorgeous in that dark green church dress. Eric wanted to hold her, to tell her everything was going to be fine. "A'ight. We all prayed for you."

"Linda told me you were a great help to her yesterday. Thank you for that. Thank you for watching out for all my girls while this craziness was going on."

"Sure. How…how you feeling?"

"Not the best I've ever felt. But I'm _alive_."

"I guess you won't be hanging out at the bar much in the future," Eric said, as hint of disappointment tinging his voice. He hated to think their bar chats might be drawing to an end.

"Well, I might come by after I recover a bit. They say they're cutting me loose on Monday or Tuesday. But I won't be drinking anymore beer. Or soda. My wife's already drawn up my list of thou shalt nots. She says I have to switch to _unsweet_ tea. That's just un-American. I might as well be dead."

"Well, I'm glad you're not."

"So, who do we say won the pool game? Was I ahead?"

Eric laughed. "Yeah, you were ahead. I'd say that whole falling to the ground thing counted as a forfeit on your part, but I don't think you're ready to throw in the towel just yet."

The Reverend sat forward slightly in the bed. "You bring a deck of cards by chance?"

"Nah. But I can run get one in the gift shop."

"Do. I've got a hunkering for some Jin Rummy. If you've got the time."

Eric would have _made_ the time, even if he hadn't had it.

Once Eric returned with the deck, they played for thirty minutes, talking about nothing serious: sports, music, the weather, movies, novels, school…quiet chit chat, like the slap of cards on the hospital tray, a peaceful lull against the backdrop of traipsing feet in the hallway, the crackling of intercoms, and the beeping of machines.

[*]

The Reverend's face screwed up after he sipped the unsweet tea. "You know she's making me eat a salad with dinner every night too?'

"She's just worried about you," Eric told him. They were sitting at one of the high tables not far from the bar, the Reverend with his unsweet tea, and Eric with his bottle of root beer. Eric got one on the house every Saturday. If he wanted more, his father said, he had to pay for it out of his own pocket. It was supposed to teach him financial responsibility. "And it _does_ look like you've lost a couple pounds."

"I wasn't precisely a whale before. I'm only moderately overweight. Even my doctor is pretty sure my heart attack had more to do with genes than diet."

"But it'll give your wife a sense of comfort if you eat better and exercise more. And it won't hurt you."

"Oh how the tables have turned!" The Reverend smiled. "So are you the one giving relationship advice now?"

Eric had hoped he'd forgotten what they were talking about when he had his heart attack. No such luck.

"Still biding your time with the girl?" the Reverend continued. "She seem anymore interested?"

She _did_ seem a little more interested to Eric. Tami was spending more time with him around school lately. Finding him between classes. Thanking him more than necessary for small kindnesses. Still asking about his interest in other girls, but in a different way than she had before - not like she was trying to set him up, but more like she was afraid of what he might answer. Sometimes, he could swear she was flirting with him, and twice, he'd almost dared to ask her out. But he hadn't quite been able to bring himself to do it. What if he was reading her cues all wrong? He'd never been the most brilliant guy when it came to deciphering girls. What if he made a move, and she said no? Would she feel awkward around him after that? Stop hanging out with him? Would he lose even the walks home from the coffee shop?

"I don't know," Eric answered. "Want to play some darts? You up to it?"

The Reverend nodded to the far wall of the bar. "I was thinking something more along the lines of pinball."

Eric grinned. "Now there's something I could beat you at. I'm a pinball wizard. I'm the one with the high score on that machine."

"You mean, since your dad re-set it?"

"Oh, I see how this is going to go," Eric said as he stood. "You're gonna trash talk your way through this whole competition."

The Reverend chuckled as he followed Eric to the pinball machine.


	8. Chapter 8

"Hello, Eric," the Reverend said. "Any particular reason you're kissing _my_ daughter in front of _my_ house?"

Eric pulled back abruptly from Tami's soft, warm lips. He'd waited so very long to make his move, and he'd been more nervous than before a kick-off when he'd dared to kiss her in the coffee shop earlier tonight. But she'd responded – more than responded. She'd shocked him with her enthusiasm, but he'd played it cool, like he'd been certain she wanted him all along.

Then he'd walked her home, feeling as much joy and adrenaline pumping through his veins as he had when he'd won the State Championship his junior year. His team had won this year, too, but he hadn't felt anything then but disappointment in his own performance. Tonight, though, he felt like a conqueror and a champion, like he'd just been given something even more beautiful and harder to obtain than a state ring.

But now he had the referee to deal with.

Eric's eyes darted to Tami's. What did she want him to say? She was supposed to get permission before she started dating anyone, he knew. Fortunately, Tami spared him from having to answer her father.

"Eric and I…we would like to date, Daddy."

"Like to?" the Reverend asked. "Seems you already _are_."

For the first time, Eric was entirely uncomfortable in the Reverend's presence. He interpreted what might have been a jovial comment as a stern one. Eric's relationship with Tami wasn't the only relationship that had changed beneath that mistletoe.

It looked like Tami was going to come to his rescue again by saying something, but her father interrupted her. He was looking right at Eric, those gray eyes dark as storm clouds, at least in Eric's imagination. Of course, the porch light was off, and the sun had begun to set, and it might just be that Eric wasn't seeing those eyes in a normal light.

"Eric," Tami's father said, "Come on in. Let me show you my library. It's a fine library. I have some books that may interest you."

Eric didn't think the Reverend really wanted to show him books. Nervously, he followed the man inside. Tami trailed behind them, but her father blocked the door of his study once Eric walked in and said, "I think your mother needs you in the kitchen" and shut the door behind them.

The click of that door seemed to echo in the silence.

"Sit down," Tami's father ordered, not in his soothing pastoral voice, but in his preacher's voice, the one he used to emphasize dramatic points in his sermons.

Eric looked around, spied an arm chair, and quickly planted himself in it.

The Reverend sat down in his large leather chair behind his sturdy, wooden desk. The Reverend looked suddenly large sitting there. He sat silently, just _looking_ at Eric.

Eric anxiously scanned the book cases that loomed behind his desk and against the walls to the right and the left. The Reverend had a _lot_ of books. Eric wondered how much money he'd spent on them, or if most were gifts. It seemed he had a small fortune in this room.

Finally, after what felt like several long minutes, the Reverend spoke. "Do you like to read, Eric?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure."

"What's your favorite book?"

"The Bible," Eric answered. He thought that would be an answer that would please the Reverend.

"Don't bullshit me, young man."

Eric blinked. Had the word _bullshit_ really just come out of the Reverend's mouth?

"What's really your favorite book?"

"Probably _The Art of War_ ," Eric answered honestly.

"Good choice." The Reverend leaned back in his chair. "I suppose you like it for the strategic advice. You apply it to the metaphorical battle on the football field?"

"Uh…yes, sir. I suppose. You know…appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak. That sort of thing."

"Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt."

"Yeah," Eric said, a little excitedly, his nervousness fading temporarily.

"Ponder and deliberate before you make a move," the Reverend quoted.

"Yeah." Eric nodded and smiled.

"Like you did with my daughter?"

Eric's smile faded. "I…" Eric looked around for…he didn't know what he was looking for. A way out, perhaps. "Nice bookcases," he said. "You have a very nice library."

"Thank you. Are you familiar with the Book of Judges? In the Bible?"

"Vaguely," Eric said.

"Do you know the story in which the beautiful young woman Jael drives a tent peg through Sisera's head to defend Israel against its enemies?"

Eric shook his head. He wasn't familiar with the story, but Jael sounded…intimidating.

"Deborah is also in Judges," the Reverend continued. "She leads Israel in battle. No one messes with Deborah."

"Uh. Yeah. I would guess not."

"Speaking of women, there's also an interesting story in Genesis, involving Dinah. Are you familiar with Dinah?"

Eric racked his brain. Genesis. That was creation and Abraham and Jacob. He knew that much. But who was Dinah? "Uh…"

"She's the daughter of Jacob. She's desired by Schechem, who rapes her. Her brothers respond to this violation of their sister by saying Shcechem can marry her, if he likes, but he and all the men of the town have to be circumcised first, so they can intermarry with Jacob's people. And while Schechem and all those men are recovering from their circumcisions, and they're still sore, the brothers of Dinah slaughter them all."

"Oh."

"It's excessive," the Reverend said. "Jacob admonishes them for such vengeance. And yet, one sympathizes with their anger, at least. After all, a young lady they loved was badly hurt."

Eric swallowed.

The Reverend drummed his fingers on the wooden desk. He studied Eric quietly for a moment more. Finally, he spoke again. "So you want to date my daughter, do you?"

"Yes, sir," Eric somehow managed to answer. "Reverend. Sir."

"She's the mystery girl who initially gave you the let's just be friends signal?"

"Uh..." Eric tried to think of everything he'd said in that conversation. He hoped he hadn't said anything that might be deemed offensive, or misconstrued, or...

"I had my suspicions."

"You did?" Eric asked, shocked to think the Reverend might have known the object of his affections the entire time they were talking about her. He hadn't acted like he knew.

"Do you have Jesus in your heart, Eric?"

"What?" Eric was surprised not only by the abrupt change in topic, but by the topic itself. In all their conversations at the bar, the Reverend had rarely touched on religion. They talked about school, music, Eric's relationship with his father, his relationship with the team, his struggle to fit in with his fellow players and students, his goals and hopes for the future. But they never talked about Jesus.

"Jesus," the Reverend repeated. "In your heart."

"Uh…yes?"

"What does that _mean_ , Eric? To have Jesus in your heart?"

"I…uh…believe in God and all that," he stumbled.

"And all that."

"Yes, sir."

"What is _all that_?"

"I…the…Nicene Creed?" he ventured. Did they use the Nicene creed in the Reverend's church? At the moment, Eric couldn't remember if they'd ever said it. He'd been to churches in three different denominations in his life. He couldn't keep them all straight.

The Reverend drummed his fingers once again. "You know what I think it means? Having Jesus in your heart?"

"No, sir."

"I don't think it means anything concrete, really. It probably means whatever the speaker wants it to mean."

"Sir?" Eric wished he knew where this sermon was heading.

"There's all sorts of church talk. Justification. Sanctification. Pray the sin away. Invite Jesus into your heart. Talk. Talk. Talk. Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of these pastors who has lost his faith in God and goes on preaching anyway. I believe the Gospel. But I've been a pastor a long time, and I've seen the ways people live their faith, and I've seen the ways they don't. And I've heard them talk. Talk. Talk. Talk."

Why the hell was Tami's father telling him all this? Where was he going with this? Eric really, really wished he would just let him leave this study.

"Last year, we had a guest preacher," the Reverend said. "You weren't here in Rankin at the time. He was preaching hellfire and brimstone, which is not my style, but my wife loves a good hellfire and brimstone sermon. She grew up on that. It's like comfort food to her. Like regular, down home cooking. She loved going to the revival tents as a teenager. That's where we met. I think I told you that. She was going for the hellfire and brimstone. I was going for the pretty girls."

Eric was really studying the books now.

"Anyway, this guest preacher who came to our church last year was talking about how every three minutes – or perhaps it was every four, I don't recall the details – but every three minutes or so, someone dies unsaved, and that someone goes to hell, to burn for all eternity."

Oh God. Where was he going with this? Was this going to end with Eric burning in hell if he ever again dared to kiss Tami?

"Every three minutes. Some pour soul. Going to the flames, to scream, in sheer torment, for all eternity."

Eric studied the black and brown spines and the gold lettering of the leather-bound books on the top shelf of the bookcase directly behind the Reverend.

"And you know what this guest preacher did after his sermon, after church ended?"

"No, sir," Eric answered.

"He invited me out for a bite to eat, and then he suggested we get in a round of golf."

Eric sat up a little straighter. He laced his fingers together.

"You see?" Reverend Hayes asked.

No, he didn't see. What was he supposed to see?

"Church talk," the Reverend concluded. "The entire sermon was just…church talk. Because how can anyone possibly care about squeezing in a round of golf in such dire circumstances, when the people around him are lost and perishing and sliding into hell one by one by one?"

"Oh," Eric muttered.

"He can't really. Not if he _really_ believes it." The Reverend slid his arm off the desk and clasped his fingers together in his lap. "So I don't know what that preacher really meant with all of his hellfire and brimstone ranting. And I also don't know what it _means,_ precisely _,_ to have Jesus in my heart. I mean, presumably, we all of us Christians have Jesus in our hearts. And yet we still sin. I, presumably, have Jesus in my heart, and yet when my daughter was crying her eyes out because that damn _football player_ had cheated on her and lied to her and shattered her growing confidence in herself, that Jesus in my heart did not stop me from wanting to go over to that boy's house and wrap my hands around his neck and throttle him."

Eric was trying not to breathe too loudly. He felt like maybe he shouldn't be heard breathing right now. Like maybe he shouldn't breathe at all.

"But I suppose it can be argued," the Reverend continued, "that the Jesus in my heart _stopped_ me from actually _doing_ it. I sometimes wonder, Eric, what sort of man I would be if I did _not_ have Jesus in my heart." The Reverend Hayes smiled. Eric had no idea what to make of that smile. "You have my permission to date my daughter, young man," he said, "but you _will_ respect her."

The Reverend Hayes rose from his chair. He walked over to the door of the study and opened it. "Shall we tell Tami the good news?"


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** To the guest who wanted the scene where the Reverend taps on the car window, I'm sorry, but I won't be doing that one, since Eric turned down the lunch invitation and they did not end up having any conversation at that time. Hope you enjoy this scene, though.

 _Comments appreciated!_

 **[*]**

The brunette, who had told Eric her name was Cindy, smiled when he handed her the coffee. Cindy then straightened her back in order to draw Eric's eyes to her cleavage. At least that's what Eric assumed she was doing, because the action _did_ draw his eyes there, ever so briefly, before he promptly returned them to her face. Eric wondered if he should tell this Cindy person that he had a serious girlfriend, because he was certainly serious about Tami. They'd even started having sex.

He'd botched that pretty badly the first time. Tami had told him it wasn't happening in high school, and then suddenly - out of nowhere - she was asking about condoms. He'd been eager - too eager - and the whole thing had ended in embarrassment. He was far more embarrassed by his lack of control than by the hikers who interrupted them.

Thank God Tami had given him a second chance to prove himself. At least, he _thought_ he'd proved himself. She'd seemed very satisfied the last time they'd done it, anyway. She sure had said _please_ a lot. But it wasn't as if he had a ton of experience. He'd only had sex with _one_ other girl. Maybe that was part of why he liked hanging out with Jack. Hanging out with one of the few virgins on the team made made him feel less out of place in a locker room full of guys boasting of conquests.

Of course, Eric wasn't sure how many of those boasts were true, and he wasn't inclined to talk of such private matters himself. After he'd started having sex with Tami, though, Jack had read the joy plain as day on his face and asked, "So, I guess you two finally _connected_?" Eric couldn't help grinning and nodding. The happiness was just pouring out of him. But Tami had been pissed off he'd told Jack. Eric didn't understand that, really, given that she always told Kimberley everything. Girls had an awful lot of double standards. But if she didn't want him to talk to anyone about it, he wouldn't.

"That shirt really sets off the lighter shades in your eyes," Cindy told him.

This was not the first time Cindy had flirted with him over her order. He was flattered, but he wasn't interested. "Yeah. My girlfriend says I look good in blue. She really likes it when I wear this shirt." Tami had said no such thing, but the comment did get the message across. Cindy's face fell. She took her coffee, said _see ya_ , and turned. Eric was relieved when the bells on the door jangled as she walked out the shop.

He was less relieved when they jangled yet again, and the Reverend Hayes walked in. It was 4:45 PM. Tami would still be working. The Reverend should be working too, counseling, but he wasn't. He was in this shop - two days after Shelley had intimated - _right in front of the Reverend_ \- that Eric and Tami were getting horizontal in the Taylor house while his parents were out of town.

"What's good, Eric?" the Reverend asked as he saddled nonchalantly up to the counter.

"Uh…come again?"

"What's good to drink?"

"Well, we sell coffee. Regular. Or decaf. And espresso. And cappuccino."

The Reverend glanced over the chalkboard that listed drinks and prices. Apparently, despite all of his years living in historical downtown Rankin, he had never set foot in the coffee shop. "Why are they so expensive? I mean, it's coffee, right?"

"Well, it's fancy coffee."

"I'll just have a small decaf."

"Dark or medium or light?"

"What?"

"The roast. You want dark or medium or light?" Eric asked.

"Well, medium I suppose. Just like Goldilocks would have it."

"Yes, sir. Here or to go?"

"To go," the Reverend said, and Eric masked his sigh of relief.

Eric got him the coffee and took his money and gave him his change, but the Reverend didn't leave the counter right away. Instead, he glanced around the shop. The place was pretty empty, except for two customers at a table in the corner.

"That was quite the performance Shelley put on Saturday night, wasn't it?"

Eric's eyes widened with alarm, because he thought the Reverend was referring to Shelley's suggestion that he and Tami had done _it_ that afternoon. Then it occurred to him the Reverend might just be talking about Shelley's play. "Yeah, she did good in the musical."

"Well."

"Pardon, sir?"

" _Well_. She did well. Not good. Well. Though it's my hope she will grow up to do _good_. Wouldn't you like to do good, Eric?"

"Uh…yeah. I try to, sir."

"Do you? With my daughter?"

 _Oh shit_. He knew. The Reverend knew Eric was getting naked with his daughter and doing all sorts of unspeakable things to her naked body. "Yes, sir. I do…well…by her."

The Reverend chuckled. "You do _good_ by her. But you treat her _well_."

"Yes, sir. I aim to."

"Never _aim_ , Eric. Simply _do_."

"Didn't you tell me the character's in the trying?"

"Oh, yes, I did didn't I?"

Eric smiled, a little relieved by the Reverend's seeming good humour. "Yes, sir."

"Well, when it comes to treating my daughter well, I expect you to _succeed_ in your efforts."

"Yes, sir. Reverend. I...I really like Tami."

"Well I should hope so. I should hope you _like_ your girlfriend."

"I mean...I love her. And I respect her. Sir."

The Reverend blew on his coffee. The steam floated toward Eric. The man did not yet move. Eric closed his eyes as the hot, wet air drifted toward his face. When he opened them, the Reverend was studying him, too intently for comfort. "I think your father and I would agree, Eric, that some things are best reserved for marriage."

Eric swallowed.

The Reverend tossed a quarter into the tip jar. "But our generation is passing away. And yours is rising up. And I would just ask, as you begin to supplant us, that you be careful not to trample us."

"Uh…yes, sir."

"You understand what I'm saying?"

He didn't, not really, but he understood that he wasn't on the hook anymore. He thought maybe as long as he didn't cheat on Tami or break her heart, or publicize the fact that they were having sex, he and the Reverend would be okay. "Yes, sir."

The Reverend took a sip of his coffee. "I should have bought the light brew. This is a bit bitter. My inclinations are generally more mild." He smiled and headed for the door, and when the bells jangled on his way out, the tension drained from Eric's body.


	10. Chapter 10

**FYI:** The Kindle eBook version of my novel, _The Caterer's Husband_ , under the pen name of Molly Taggart, is on a Countdown deal at Amazon for just 99 cents starting today. The novel was inspired by the relationship between Tami and Eric, though it otherwise no longer has any relation to Friday Night Lights.

 **A/N:** I have two more chapters in mind for this story, though you never know. It may grow. I hope people are still reading and enjoying.

 **[*]**

Eric felt a warm contentment as Tami kissed him and then lay her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her where they stood on the sidewalk outside the parsonage and savored the familiar feel of her body against his.

"You two love birds fancy some dinner?"

Tami pulled away from Eric's embrace at the sound of her father's voice.

"Your mother called and told me she's making corned beef."

Eric felt the absence of Tami's warmth immediately, but he wasn't particularly bothered by the Reverend's interruption. As awkward as Eric felt about dating - and especially about having sex with - the pastor's daughter, he still liked the pastor himself. In fact, a minute ago, he had just been telling Tami that he wished he had a father like that. And now, as the Reverend came upon them so matter-of-factly, it occurred to Eric that the man might actually _be_ his father-in-law one day. "God, I love her corned beef," Eric said. "Let me check with my mom if it's okay for me to stay."

Eric's mother sounded disappointed when he called her to ask if he could stay, though she said yes. Eric could tell she feared he was pulling away from home, and, in fact, he was. He was ready to leave his father's house, and he wasn't much interested in looking back. He would check in on his mother, of course. He would write, call, and invite her to visit him, but he didn't much care if his father didn't come along.

"You should have Tami over _here_ again sometime," his mother said. "I like her."

Eric promised his mother he would, and then settled at the table with the Hayes family, where he was asked to say grace. He was better prepared for the request this time, and attempted to impress the Reverend with a lengthy grace, but when he was done, Shelley said, "God, Eric, do you have to go on and on?"

"Shush now, Shelley," Mrs. Hayes scolded her. "He was just honoring the Lord."

"Well," Shelley shot back, "I think Jesus says something about not prattling on in your prayers, like the pagans do. Isn't that right, Daddy?"

"Jesus says such people love to be heard for their _much speaking_ ," the Reverend replied. "But I think we can give Eric the benefit of the doubt and assume his heart was in the right place. Don't you think so, Shelley?"

Shelley shrugged.

"Though I'm glad to see you know your Bible."

"Kind of hard not to when I have to sit in the front row of church and listen to same sort of things every single week, week after week after week after - "

"- Shelley!" Mrs. Hayes interrupted her. "Don't belittle church. It's a beautiful thing."

"Sorry, Mom." Shelley rolled her eyes in Tami's direction, but Eric noticed she didn't get much sympathy from that corner.

Eric savored the corned beef. It was just the perfect amount of salty. This was not a dish they ever had in the Taylor household, but Tami seemed to have it once a week. "Is Hayes an Irish name?" he asked. Tami did have a red tinge to her hair.

"Top of the morning to you!" Shelley shouted in a horrid Irish accent, and Tami smirked at Eric, who smiled into his plate.

"Shelley, a little quieter at the table, please," Mrs. Hayes insisted.

"It originated as the Gaelic polygenetic surname O'Aodha," the Reverend said, "meaning descendant of Aodh, which means fire. The name may have originated from the Celtic god of fire."

"God, Eric, did you have to get him started?" Shelley asked. "Daddy has a serious thing for etymology."

"Genealogy, genius," Tami corrected her, and Eric chuckled.

"No, I _meant_ etymology," Shelley insisted. "Word origins. He's talking about the origin of the _name_ , Sherlock."

Eric raised his eyebrows at Tami. Had her flaky little sister really just won that argument? Tami shrugged.

"Give your sister some credit, Tami," the Reverend told her. "Shelley's quite clever, really. Now, if she would just put that intellect of hers to good use."

"I have a 3.5, Daddy."

"Your grades aren't my issue, sweetheart. But we need to talk about that fellow who drove you home from school today. Your mother told me about that."

Shelley smiled at the Reverend. "Marcus is perfectly harmless, Daddy."

"He didn't _look_ harmless when he kissed you before you got out of that car," Mrs. Hayes said. "You _know_ you're not supposed to be dating until you're 16. And certainly not some _junior_."

"So our name means fire?" Shelley asked. She was obviously trying to deflect the conversation. "That's strange."

"I think it's fitting," said Mrs. Hayes while looking at her husband. "It suits your fiery personality, dear."

"What?" Shelley asked. "Daddy's as calm as the ocean."

"The ocean isn't always calm," Mrs. Hayes told her. "Those waves can really grow. And the power in them! Your father was a very passionate man in his younger years."

"Eww!" Shelley said. "Mom, please, I'm trying to eat here."

"I mean he was passionate about his religion! About his preaching!"

"I still am," the Reverend insisted. "It's just…I've learned a fire doesn't always have to be loud. It doesn't always have to be restlessly burning."

Eric thought maybe Tami had inherited a bit of that passion. He was really looking forward to seeing more of that passionate side of her…mostly in bed, if he was honest. But he also admired her compassion and energy and commitment to the things that interested her. On the other hand, he was a little afraid she might get bored with him. Tonight, though, they'd talked about the future - about being together in college - maybe even _after_ college. She wanted that, it turned out, which was a relief to him, because he'd been thinking about it a lot lately – her in his life for years to come. He hadn't been entirely sure she'd felt the same way. There was a danger, he'd feared, that he could end up the rebound guy, but tonight she'd erased most of those concerns.

Holding his fork just above his plate, the Reverend said, "The name was anglicized to Hayes, though in County Cork, it became O'Hea. Our clan is from County Cork. They call it the Rebel County. Eric, I'll show you our coat of arms after dinner."

"You have a coat of arms?" Eric asked.

"Of course Daddy has a coat of arms," Shelley said.

"Where are your people from?" the Reverend asked him. "The Taylors? England, Scotland, or Wales?"

"My people are from Texas," Eric replied.

The Reverend laughed. "They fight at the Alamo?"

"Probably not, but my dad once owned a bar a mile from the Alamo."

"Where are your mother's people from?" the Reverend asked. "What's her maiden name?"

Eric was a little surprised by this interest in family origins. It made him suddenly aware of how disconnected his own family was. His mother was warm to him, but his father had always been a little distant, a little _weird_ as Tami called him. He'd never met a single grandparent. His fathers' parents had of course died long before Eric was born, and the stepfather might as well be dead, even if he wasn't. Eric's mother had been disowned by her parents, and she wasn't even sure if they were still living. Eric loved his sister, but Kathleen was in her own world now. He had no cousins. No uncles. No aunts. Nothing.

He wondered if that was why he'd sometimes felt a little bit adrift, out of place, not really rooted to anything. Football had become his anchor. Football _was_ family. As long as he played, he always had brothers. And a football family had its own traditions, too, its own stories and special days, its favorites and its black sheep. He probably wasn't the only one of his teammates that had found a family in football. Some of those guys came from some pretty broken homes. And a coach had to deal with all that - all those half-orphaned children, all that natural family baggage.

"Your mind's gone somewhere else," the Reverend said.

"I'm sorry. I was just thinking how a football team is kind of like a family, and how, if I do become a coach, I'm going to have a lot more influence and responsibility than I realized." In fact, his stomach was getting a little knotted just thinking about it.

"You'll rise to the occasion, though, Eric," the Reverend assured him. "You will."

Eric could feel the knots in his stomach untangling, bit by bit, with this firm but gentle assurance. He smiled into his cabbage, and, with renewed confidence, speared a leaf.

The evening passed with more stories, conversation, and laughter. As Eric made his way back to his truck, in the glow of the street lights, the cars wooshing by every now and then, he thought he wanted his own home to feel like that one day - gentle teasing, love, and laughter...sharing the past while moving toward the future.


	11. Chapter 11

Eric tucked his keys into the pocket of his khakis as he walked into the bar. He'd just dropped off Mr. Richardson, the father of one of his old teammates. Now that it was summer, Eric was playing taxi boy on Friday and Sunday nights at the bar and working thirty hours a week at the coffee shop, but he kept his Saturdays free for Tami.

Mr. Richardson had gotten himself drunk because he'd come home early Friday afternoon to a _Dear John_ letter. Twenty-one years he'd been married, and she'd left him to "find herself." Eric had heard all about it on the drive home, and he'd been forced to watch a grown man cry. The experience had made him uneasy and had turned his mind to unpleasant thoughts, so he was glad to see the Reverend. Tami's father was sitting at the far end of the bar, sipping ice tea, and chatting with the bartender.

Eric strolled over and slid onto the stool next to him and the bartender went back to work. "Why did you start coming on Fridays?" he asked the Reverend.

"So I could have the pleasure of your company, of course. You don't work Saturday afternoons. You're too busy romancing my daughter."

"Well, someone has to do it," Eric said with a smile.

The Reverend chuckled. "Is it an onerous task?"

"Nah. Can't say it's too difficult."

"What are you planning to do tomorrow?"

Sex. They were planning to spend a good amount of time having sex. Eric would be leaving for summer training in five days. They wouldn't see each other again for three weeks, when Tami promised to drive from Dallas to attend his first TMU home game. "Thought we'd go to the lake for a bit. Go for a hike. Maybe swim." It wasn't entirely a lie. They'd probably do that, _too_.

"I can't last more than twenty minutes in this heat," the Reverend said. "But you're used to training in it, I suppose."

Eric motioned the bartender for his complimentary root beer. He got one on the nights he was working. _One_. His father insisted he pay for any additional drinks.

"I sure am going to miss this place," the Reverend said.

"Well, it'll still be standing. Just under new ownership." Eric's father had two offers on the bar now, and he was currently in negotiations. He expected to walk away with a decent profit.

"It won't be the same. I think I'll miss our chats."

Eric smiled. "Yeah. Me, too." He accepted the opened root beer bottle from the bar tender and took a sip. "You've…you've really helped me work through some stuff. And I never really thanked you for that."

"Are you thanking me now?"

"I guess I am."

"Then you're welcome. Glad to have been of service."

Eric looked around the bar. "You know, I'm going to miss this place, too. Never really thought it would be hard for me to step away from anything that was my father's, but…he built something decent here."

"Maybe you should tell him that. Might make him feel good to know his son thinks highly of something he's accomplished."

Eric made a non-comittal sound and took another sip of his root beer.

"Tell him, Eric."

"A'ight." His bottle clinked on the bar. He pushed it forward over the cherry oak. "I'm worried."

"About you and Tami and the distance?"

"Nah. I mean, yeah, I'm worried about how much I'm going to miss her, but…I'm not really worried about _us_. I think she's serious about me."

"I take it that means you're also serious about her?"

"Yes, sir." He didn't say he'd proposed and been shot down or that he'd settled for an engagement to be engaged.

"So what's worrying you?"

Eric told him about Mr. Richardson. "Twenty-one years," he said. "And she just walked away. He thinks she was waiting until Joey – that's his youngest son - went off to college. And Joey left for Houston last week. He's one of the four of us who got a full football scholarship to college."

"I've seen it happen more than a few times. The parents stay together until the kids are grown. They imagine it won't hurt the kids as much when they're older, but that's a precarious time to rip the rug out from under a young person." The Reverend shook his head. "To get that sort of jolt just as he's becoming an adult, just as he's really forming his independent identity apart from his parents…it can be very unnerving. So you're worried about your friend?"

"I hope he's okay, yeah, sure, but we aren't that close. We were teammates, you know, but not good friends. We hung out sometimes. I don't expect to be in touch with him now that he's in Houston."

"So what _is_ worrying you then?"

Eric took a sip of his root beer because he wasn't quite ready to spit it all out at once.

"Are you waiting for me to guess?"

"Maybe," Eric admitted.

"I can't read your mind. I'm good, but I'm not that good."

"A'ight. It's got me thinking. It never really occurred to me before that something like that could happen just like -" Eric snapped his fingers.

"It's never just like that," the Reverend said. "I'm sure it's been a long time coming."

"But I mean, that they were married _that_ long, made it _that_ long, and then all it took was the right moment. Joey moving out of the house. And part of me is worrying that, when I go to TMU...my mother's going to leave my father. And he's not going to know what hit him."

"It's not often I've see you worry about the happiness of your father. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen it."

"I don't know what he'd be without her. She's his social front, you know. She keeps him a little bit in check, when he starts saying offensive things he doesn't even realize are offensive. And he doesn't really have anyone but her. He doesn't have friends. He has employees, and they respect him. But he doesn't have friends. She's his entire world outside of the bar business. And his children, but my sister's gone, and I'm about to be."

"What makes you think your mother would leave him?"

"I don't know. Just realizing she _could,_ I guess. He's selling the bar soon. She'd probably get half the proceeds in a divorce. That would set her up decent. Kathleen's grown. I'm moving out, and I'm covered by scholarship. She doesn't need him anymore."

"And what makes you think she's only stayed with him all these years because she's _needed_ him?"

"I mean, I think that's why she married him," Eric said. "Because she had my sister, and she was alone, a struggling single mother, and she was poor, and he was offering her this stable future."

"And you think that's the _only_ reason she married him?" the Reverend asked.

"They didn't even date, really. Two dates. You can't already know how you feel about someone in two dates. There had to be a mercenary element. I mean, I don't blame her. God knows what Kathleen's future would have been like in poverty, and I never would have been born. But you can't be in love with someone after two dates."

"When did you know you were in love with Tami?" the Reverend asked.

"That's completely different. We were good friends before we even started dating."

"Let's assume that the need for financial stability _is_ the only reason your mother married your father, and I'm by no means convinced of that assumption. I think it gives your mother too little credit. But let's assume it. Why do you suppose that, after more than two decades of shared triumphs and trials, she hasn't _grown_ to love him?"

Eric ran a finger along a grain in the wood of the bar. "Because…honestly…I don't see what there is for her to love about him. He's so…rigid. He has no tact when it comes to pointing out flaws. He's usually only affectionate with her when she reminds him to be. Like, I mean, she's got to say – directly – _put your arm around me_ when they're sitting on the couch reading."

"But when she asks, does he do it?"

"Sure. But who the hell wants to have to ask? Excuse my language."

The Reverend sipped his tea. He seemed to be thinking. After a few more quiet sips, he spoke. "Eric, my guess is that your father has closed off some emotional part of himself as a result of his negligent upbringing. He doesn't know _how_ to express those things. Your mother knows this about him, and she's simply _accepted_ it. She admires him because he's loyal, hardworking, and reliable."

"That's the _least_ a man ought to be."

The Reverend smiled. "That's what I like about you. That you take those virtues for granted, as a bare minimum. But you take them for granted in part because you grew up with them as a given in your own father. Let me assure you that not all children do. Not all children even _have_ fathers, let alone faithful, hardworking, and reliable ones. And your mother probably also admires him because he's handsome, successful, assertive, and confident. Don't underestimate the appeal of confidence to women."

Suddenly, Eric was not confident that he was confident. Was he confident? Did Tami think he was confident? Was the very fact that he was asking himself that question proof that he wasn't confident?

"Sure," the Reverend continued, "your mother would probably love it if your father had more social acumen, if he was less critical, if he was more flexible, if he were more naturally affectionate. But she's learned to communicate with him on his terms, and she's learned to appreciate the ways he does show his regard for her. Most likely, she's decided not to be romantic about it. And I don't think she's going to leave him just because you walk out the door."

Eric peered at him. "It's like you've _thought_ about this."

"I think about a lot of things." The Reverend finished off his tea and pushed the empty glass forward.

"Let me ask you something," Eric ventured. "Do you think _I'm_ confident?"

"I think you can give the impression of confidence when you need to, and that's all that really matters."

"Even to a girl?"

The Reverend chuckled. "Especially to a girl." He poked Eric playfully in the shoulder. "You remember when you went with me to the hospital for my heart attack?"

"Kind of hard to forget."

"To hear my wife tell it, you were a _rock_ that night. Outwardly, you were a rock for her and Shelley and Tami. But I'm going to guess you weren't a rock inwardly."

"No, sir," he admitted.

"But you gave Tami what she needed. Keep giving her what she needs, and you'll do just fine."

Though he perfectly understood the Reverend, Eric's teenage mind could not help but leap to Tami's _sexual_ needs, and the thought of himself fulfilling them tomorrow. He coughed to cover his schoolboy smile and was afraid he was going to laugh when his father's emergence from the backroom completely silenced him. Mr. Taylor came around the bar and opened the register. He took out a twenty and put a note in.

"Robbing the register?" the Reverend asked playfully.

"Borrowing," Mr. Taylor said. "My numbers always add up. Except that one time I had to fire that fellow."

"Sir," the bartender said to him. "My wife's been sick this week and not able to work at her job. I really need some overtime. Can I tend bar Saturday and Sunday night too?"

"I've got that covered," Mr. Taylor said. "But come in and I'll find something else for you to do."

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

Mr. Taylor nodded to the other end of the bar. "Mr. Thomas is empty."

"I was just about to take care of that." He disappeared quickly.

"You get Mr. Richardson home safely?" Eric's father asked him as he slid the twenty into his wallet.

"Yes, sir."

"His wife left him today, so if he didn't tip you, that might be why."

"Uh...yeah, he told me."

"I can't imagine why a woman would do that after twenty-one years," Eric's father said. "There's no logic in it."

The Reverend interjected. "The heart knows no logic."

"Well it ought."

"What's the money for, Dad?"

"I'm going to pick up some flowers for your mother on the way home."

"But it's not Wednesday. They're not on sale." His father didn't even seem to catch the sarcasm in his voice, and it suddenly occurred to Eric that his father might be deviating from his usual pattern because _he_ was worried by the news of Mr. Richardson's wife leaving him. His voice now softened, he said, "You should get her a dozen red roses for a change."

"Yellow is her favorite color. Carnations are her favorite flower. She's told me so."

"Yeah, Dad, I know, but sometimes women like to be surprised by something different. It shows you've been thinking about them."

"And you know this because of your years of experience with women?"

Eric bit down on his back teeth.

"Eric has a point," the Reverend said.

"My wife doesn't like roses. They die to soon. They aren't economical. She's told me that. She'd have no reason to lie about her preferences, because if she wanted roses, I would get her roses." He was looking at the Reverend peevishly.

"You know your wife better than I do," the Reverend conceded. Then, turning to Eric, "Eric had something he wanted to tell you. About the bar."

Eric's eyes widened. He didn't like being put on the spot.

"Is there a problem?" his father asked. "Did you notice something wrong?"

It didn't even occur to his father that Eric might want to compliment the bar. Why was that, Eric wondered? Had he really said so little positive to his father? Had he been like his father _to_ his father? "Just that...I just was thinking that you've built a really great thing here. The town didn't have anything like this before you were here. You turned it into something really good, and people love coming here."

His father looked at him suspiciously, as though he thought Eric must have some peculiar motive in saying all this.

"I mean it," Eric insisted. "People tell me all the time what a great place my dad's built. And I think it's great, too."

"Thank you," he concluded, and as he turned to leave, he told the bartender, "Get Eric another root beer on me."


	12. Chapter 12

"One more." Eric kissed Tami again. He had her pinned against the side of his pick-up, which was now parked outside the parsonage and loaded with all of his things for college. He'd stopped for one last goodbye before hitting the highway. He expected to arrive in Austin after midnight. His first day of training started at 7 AM tomorrow.

Tami finally pulled away. "You better get going," she told him. "You're going to be exhausted in the morning if you get in too late."

"Don't let those UT-Dallas guys turn your head."

"I don't think any of them are as cute as you, anyway." Tami hooked a finger in his belt loop. "And you make sure those cheerleaders know you have a serious girlfriend."

He leaned in. "Only thing that matters is that I know it," he whispered, and kissed her smiling lips. They were still kissing when the parsonage door opened.

"Sorry to interrupt," the Reverend said. "But I wanted to say goodbye."

Eric turned around to face him. "Sorry to say, Reverend, but I don't think this is the last you'll be seeing of me."

The Reverend smiled. He extended him a book. "I wanted to give you this."

Eric took the gift and thanked him.

"It's a Bible with commentary suited for college students," Tami's father said. "Not to get all religious on you, but it's very easy to neglect your faith in college. To walk away from it. I hope you won't."

"No, sir, I won't," Eric promised, even though he didn't expect to crack open that Bible. He wasn't much of a Bible reader, and he went to church mainly to be a dutiful son. The tradition of it all appealed to him, as did the communal aspect, but he knew that if he lived in a part of a country where it was _not_ the tradition, or with a family who did not expect it of him, he probably wouldn't do it.

"Just remember it's there if you're ever struggling. You can look to it for comfort and guidance"

Eric smiled. "Yes, sir. Thank you. I appreciate it."

The Reverend extended him his hand. "You take care of yourself at TMU now, you here?"

Eric tucked the Bible under his arm and shook the man's hand firmly.

[*]

Eric sat alone at his desk. He missed Tami something awful. She'd packed her schedule with 19 credits, since she was planning to graduate in three anda half years to save money, and she'd been busy trying to make the best grades possible so she could transfer to UT-Austin to be near Eric. The away games were often too far for her to make the trip, and football took much more of Eric's time than he had imagined it would. It was like a full-time job on top of his 12 credits. He'd seen Tami only three times since he left for summer training, though he wrote her letters every other day and they talked on the phone twice a week, despite the outrageous long distance charges.

Eric wasn't thinking about how much he missed Tami at the moment, however. Something else was plaguing him. He flipped through the Bible the Reverend had given him, looking for some direction. For the third time, he opened to a random page, spun his finger, and let it land on a verse to see if it would enlighten him. The verse above his finger read, "We have a little sister, and she has no breasts."

He slammed the Bible shut, picked up the phone, and dialed. When the church secretary answered, he asked for Reverend Hayes, and when the Reverend answered, he said, "This Bible is not working the way you said it would."

"Hello, Eric."

"There's some weird verses in here."

The Reverend chuckled.

"First one I landed on was about the bowels of the saints, whatever that means. The second one was about some woman throwing a foreskin at Moses, and the third was about a girl with no breasts."

"You're not supposed to select verses at random, Eric. You're supposed to read it in context."

"Well it's not helping."

"Might _I_ help?"

That was the question Eric was waiting for. "We've got this honor code at TMU. We sign it every year."

"And?"

"And one of the things it says is that we'll report violations of the honor code if we see them."

"Ah."

"Which I think is a pretty lame honor code," Eric said. "I mean, I try to be honorable, I do, but I don't see how squealing is honorable."

"But you signed it?"

"I have to it. It's required," Eric said.

"And you didn't think much about it when you signed it," the Reverend guessed, "but now you've witnessed an infraction, and it's somebody you know and possibly like, and so you don't want to report it."

"I'm not a squealer."

"I understand your perspective, Eric, but how could any honorable society exist for long if good men said nothing when they saw something dishonorable happening? I take it this is a teammate."

Eric sighed. "It's…a few teammates, actually. With the help of an assistant coach. Or offensive coordinator."

"Cheating?"

"Yes." Eric shut the Bible roughly.

"With the _help_ of a coach?"

"Yeah. He gave them the answers to a test in advance."

"I imagine that's a bit disillusioning to you."

"It doesn't surprise me that some of the players cheat. I saw that in high school. But I didn't expect this of Coach McKinnley. And if I report this…we could lose some good players. We could lose a good coach mid-season."

"A good coach? Is that the kind of coach you want leading you?"

"I guess not."

"Is that the kind of coach _you_ want to be someday?"

"No," Eric answered. "But it's complicated. There's a lot more backroom stuff involved in football than I ever realized. Politics and…it's not really an even playing field. Our competitors are all probably doing it."

"And that makes it all right for your team to do it?"

"No, but it's complicated," Eric said. "You don't know what this world is like."

"Perhaps not. But it sounds to me like this is not the last moral dilemma you're going to have to face in that world. So how you respond this time could very well set the pace for how you respond the next time…and the next. Keep that in mind when you make your decision."

Eric rubbed his eyes. "I can report it anonymously, but I'd be a pariah if anyone ever found out, and I'd feel like a squealer. And if we lose players over this…if they get suspended…if we need a new offensive coordinator… it's going to be really hard the rest of the season to get any wins."

"I won't tell you what to do, Eric, but I will tell you something my own father told me. The easy thing is seldom the right thing to do. And I don't think you called me because you wanted encouragement to do the easy thing."


	13. Chapter 13

A week later, the Reverend called Eric while he was studying for an upcoming history test. "Saw the news," the Reverend said. "About TMU getting a new offensive coordinator and suspending a few players."

"Yeah."

"I take it you reported the cheating then."

"Uh…no. Not exactly. I wanted to think about it some more. And talk to Tami."

"And what did Tami say?"

"She said I should honor the honor code I signed. But, you know…squealing on my own teammates. It didn't sit right. So, after I talked to her, I took another day to think some more. And…well…I guess someone else must have reported it. And the administration found the latest test answers in the offensive coordinator's drawer, with the names of the players he was giving them to written right on top."

"Ah. Convenient for you."

"Yeah," Eric said. "I'm relieved."

There was silence on the other end of the line for awhile, and then the Reverend's soft, contemplative tone. "Are you familiar with Pontius Pilate?"

"The Roman governor?" Eric asked. He didn't know why the Reverend was bringing up such a thing. He was going to go off on one of his mysterious biblical tangents again, Eric supposed, and he wasn't going to know what the man was talking about. But Eric decided to play along. "In Jesus's day?"

"Pilate was faced with a crisis of conscience when Jesus was brought before him for execution. He didn't want to say yes, because he found no proof of Jesus's guilt. He didn't want to say no, because it might have incited an uprising if he did not appease the crowd, and Pilate was responsible for the stability of his own province as well. It seemed there was no right choice. So he washed his hands of the entire affair. He said to the crowd, essentially, I find no fault in this man, this is _your_ choice, not mine, this has nothing to with me. He let the execution happen, but he believed that by washing his hands of it, he kept his conscience clean."

"I'm not sure I understand your point," Eric said.

"What is the easiest thing for a man of conscience to do when faced with a moral dilemma?"

"Uh...what?"

"Nothing."

Eric wrapped the phone cord around his finger and let it spring loose.

"To take no positive action, and to make no firm decision, in either direction," the Reverend continued, "and to imagine that whatever plays out around him has nothing to do with him."

"So what are you saying? That I shouldn't think?" Eric asked defensively. "I shouldn't take any time to think at all? I thought you, of all people, would believe it was important to think about what you do before you do it."

"It _is_ important," the Reverend said softly. "But when you become a coach yourself, you'll be faced many times with questions and temptations such as these. And I'd hate for you to simply sit back and let things unfold around you, to imagine that if you turn a blind eye while others dirty their hands, that somehow keeps your conscience clean."

"Well at least I'm not breaking any rules myself!" Eric didn't quite understand what the Reverend was suggesting, but he felt like Tami's father thought he'd done something wrong, when the only thing he'd done was struggle to figure out what the _right_ thing even was. Now he wished he'd never reached out to the Reverend at all.

"Have you ever read Revelation?"

"No," Eric said with annoyance. Great. Another biblical reference.

"In it one of the churches is scolded for being lukewarm. Jesus says, _Be ye either hot or cold, or I will spew you out of my mouth_."

"I don't know what that means, Reverend. If you have something to say to me, why don't you just say it?"

Eric's roommate, Kash, opened the door and came and threw himself on the bed. His head propped up on a pillow, he opened a _Playboy_. Eric glanced at him and then turned back to the phone.

"You need to take time to think, of course," the Reverend said. "But if you delay making a decision long enough…in the future, that delay is not always going to allow the problem to work itself out the way it did this time."

"I know that," Eric insisted.

"So what I'm saying is, there eventually comes a point when not acting against something is no better than acting in favor of it. There comes a point when _not_ telling the truth is no better than lying."

"I'm not one of the guys who was cheating here!" He glanced at Kash, who was now looking at him curiously. Eric lowered his voice. "I don't cheat."

"But you benefited from their cheating. It maintained the team you wanted. It kept the players you wanted to be on the team on you team. You know why Jesus said it's better to be cold than to be lukewarm? Because there's at least honesty in coldness. The liar at least knows he is lying. He may not be honest with others, but he's at least honest with himself. And he assumes the risk of discovery himself, instead of benefiting while someone else assumes the risk."

Eric shook his head, anger and shame and confusing somersaulting through his gut.

Kash interrupted the wrestling match in Eric's stomach. "Hey," he said, holding up a centerfold in Eric's direction. "This one kind of looks like Tami."

"Watch it!" Eric seethed, his anger at the Reverend and at himself all coming out in Kash's direction.

"What?" the Reverend asked.

"I wasn't talking to you," Eric assured him.

"Jesus, take a chill pill," Kash said, and turned the magazine back to himself. "It _does_ look like her. The hair. I wasn't suggesting I'd ever seen her naked."

Eric put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Kash," he muttered. "I'm talking to her _father_."

"That's weird. Why would you talk to your girlfriend's father?"

"Man, could I have some privacy here?"

Kash shrugged, rose, and dropped the _Playboy_ on Eric's desk. "Check her out. So you can relax before this game you're about to lose." He left the room.

The centerfold did look a little like Tami. She was on all fours on a bed. Eric wondered if Tami would let him take her that way. Feeling dirty for thinking of sex with Tami while talking to her father, Eric used his textbook to shove the magazine off his desk and onto the floor.

"Eric, I'm sorry if I offended or angered you," the Reverend said. "I think you're a good, honorable young man who tries to do the right thing, and that's more than I can say for a lot of kids your age who don't even think about these things at all. But I'm thinking ahead to the future, and what might await you there. And I'm saying what I think needs to be said _now_ in case I'm not around to say it later."

"What?" Eric asked anxiously. "Is something wrong? Your heart. Did you – "

"- My heart's no worse for the wear at the moment. But I had one massive heart attack before I was even 50. And someday I'm probably going to have another one. And I hope I'm around for many years to come, to see both of my daughters graduate college, and marry, and start their careers, to see my grandchildren. But nature makes no promises."

Eric rubbed his eyes. He sometimes forgot the Reverend was not in the best of health. "A'ight," he said quietly. "I understand. I'm not…offended. I respect your advice. Even when I don't agree with it, I respect it."

"How are your classes going?" the Reverend asked cheerfully, obviously eager to change the subject and end the conversation on a more pleasant note.

But that, unfortunately, was not a chipper subject. Eric sighed. "I have two Bs, a B-, and a C+ as of the mid-term."

Eric braced himself for the criticism he was sure his own father would give him, but the Reverend just said, "Hey, that's not bad. College is much more challenging than high school, and given all the time you have to dedicate to football in the fall, that's actually fairly impressive."

Eric found himself smiling, and then frowning. "Well, _my_ dad thinks anything less than a B is outright failing, and that anything less than an A is just average. I don't want to tell him what my grades are. He's going to tell me I'm not trying hard enough."

"Well you don't have to tell him today."

"He'll probably ask how I'm doing in my classes at Saturday's game though."

"Speaking of Saturday's game," the Reverend said. "I thought I'd come to that. San Angelo is only two hours from Rankin. And I liked to see Tami. She told me she's going to be there."

Eric was glad the Reverend wanted to see his game, but what if he wanted to stay overnight in town, in the same hotel? That could really put a damper on Eric's plans to share a bedroom with Tami and make up for lost time. "I don't know if you want to see it, though. Our defense is going to suck. We lost some of our best guys over this cheating thing."

"But you're starting in this game, aren't you? Tami said it would be your first time actually starting."

"Yeah. The new offensive coordinator convinced the head coach I should start."

"So not all change is for the worse."

"What if I screw up, though?"

"Well, then, the sun's still going to come up in the morning."


	14. Chapter 14

In San Angelo, Eric turned in an unexpectedly good performance, leading his team to a narrow victory. Eric was happy for more reasons than one. He didn't want to lose with Tami watching. A guy did not get fervently laid after a loss, and although he was pretty sure Tami would have thrown him pity sex if the outcome had been disastrous, he didn't want their now rare encounters to be anything less than passionate.

Eric kissed Tami eagerly at the sidelines after the game, until he felt his parents and the Reverend watching. When his mother suggested they all go out to a victory dinner after he cleaned up, he reluctantly agreed. He really would have preferred to skip ahead to dessert. Tami smiled at him and mouthed, "Patience," and he smiled back and ran after his teammates.

They opted for an Italian restaurant Mr. Taylor had chosen because, as he told the Reverend, "My wife likes Italian. It's her second favorite ethnic food. French is her first, but there are no French restaurants in a 25 mile vicinity of San Angelo."

This was the first time the Reverend had sat down to a meal with Eric's parents, and the conversation was initially awkward, but it eventually fell into a groove, at least until Eric's father asked about his grades.

"A B-, Eric? Son, that's disappointing. You're capable of far more than that."

"I understand football requires something like thirty hours a week of his time," the Reverend said. "It must be challenging for him to find time to study in those circumstances."

Mr. Taylor glanced peevishly at the Reverend and then looked back at Eric. "You aren't even taking particularly challenging classes this semester."

"Well, you know, Dad," Eric shot back, "you've never taken _any_ college classes. You didn't even finish high school. So how would _you_ know?" He felt bad when he said it. Tami looked very uncomfortable. Eric also hadn't meant to throw his father's lack of education into his face, but the man was being a pain in the ass.

"I earned my G.E.D.," Eric's father replied coolly. "And I took several community college classes before you were born and while you were a toddler. Accounting I and II, Statistics for Business, Marketing, Spanish for Business...several other classes."

"Oh," Eric muttered. "Well I didn't know that."

"I got As in all of them, while running a business and raising a family. I expect you to pull those grades back up."

The Reverend changed the subject. "How is the new bar in Dallas, John?"

"Well," Eric's father answered, "I will say this bar we own now if quite different from the one in Rankin."

"We who?" Eric asked. "Did you go in with a partner?" He didn't think his father liked working with a business partner. He hadn't had one in fifteen years, not since he could afford to buy a place himself.

"I meant your mother."

"Oh."

"Your mother's always had a hand in the business," his father said. "Whether she's covering for a waitress or a bar tender when we're short staffed, or she's sweet talking the distributors into lower prices, or she's getting the word-of-mouth advertising going."

"I just never heard you say _we_ before."

"I'm sure you have," Eric's mother said, and gave him a light smile, as though to scold him gently for refusing to give his father the benefit of the doubt.

The Reverend then turned to Eric's father. "How is this bar different?"

"It's not a sports bar. It's the first bar of its kind we've ever run. You describe it, dear."

"It's a wine and cocktail bar, really," Eric's mother said. "With live acoustic music."

"Sounds...upscale," Tami said, and gave Eric a knowing look.

"Yeah, Dad," Eric said. "Didn't you tell Tami you would never open an upscale bar? That the middle-class is the class to target?"

"Have you _seen_ the money in Dallas, son?"

Tami and Eric's fathers fought briefly over the bill when it came, but Mr. Taylor won after saying, "I'm sure I make considerably more money than you do," to which Eric's mother said in a low, scolding tone, " _Darling._ " She turned her smile on the Reverend. "My husband means to say that we're grateful for your company and all of the spiritual counsel you've provided for our family, and we're more than happy to treat tonight."

Eric's parents headed back to Dallas that night, because his father didn't want to miss much work. The Reverend, to Eric's relief, planned to return to Rankin. Before the Reverend hit the road, however, he asked Tami if she might be interested in checking out the clothing shop next to the restaurant while he and Eric had a drink at the bar. She took the hint and made herself scarce.

"Looks like things are working out just fine for you now," the Reverend told him.

"Yeah, except now that I played so well, it's giving my dad ideas about me making it to the NFL again."

"He's always going to have big dreams for you, Eric. And high expectations."

"What if your dad constantly expected you to be Pope?"

"Well, I'd have to change denominations. And I think it's a little easier to get into the NFL than to become Pope."

"You know what I mean, though."

"I know what you mean," the Reverend said, and took a sip of his Diet Coke. "I see your mother hasn't walked out on your father."

"Yeah. You were maybe right about that."

"How are you and he getting along, now that you aren't under the same roof?"

"I don't really see him except when he comes to the games. So...okay I guess."

"You don't call?"

Eric shook his head. "It would be weird, trying to talk to him on the phone. My mom calls once a week. I talk to her. But...the distance is good. You know, with a little distance, I'm starting to resent him less. Now that we aren't constantly butting heads anymore."

"Wait until you have children of your own," the Reverend said, smiling and raising his Diet Coke. "That's when you _really_ begin to forgive your parents."

Eric didn't think much of the Reverend's words. After all, he certainly wasn't planning on having kids for years and years...


	15. Chapter 15

Eric flipped the burgers on the grill as a host of kids hunted for eggs in the church courtyard. Tami, wearing a well-fitting spring dress and flashing a brilliant smile as white as her sandals, was helping the littlest ones. As Eric watched her, he felt a mixture of sexual desire, affection, and admiration surge though him, but along with it came a subtle fear that he might be rushing too quickly into a pair of shackles.

Most of his teammates were spending Spring Break at the beach in Galveston, partying, drinking, and chasing tail. And yet here he was back in Rankin, flipping burgers at the church of his likely future father-in-law.

He sometimes felt out of place at college because of his sense of certainty that Tami would be a part of his future. It made all the flirting at the parties and the crude talk in the locker room somehow distant from him. But whenever he was down in the mud with his teammates on that field, or working hard to master some play, or being encircled after a touchdown and patted on the back, his sense of being an outsider dissolved into a sea of brotherhood.

When it came to hanging with guys outside of practice, however, he found himself drawn to the small handful that had steady girlfriends. Even a couple of those guys chased girls, though, and he hated when they expected him to cover for them, to be their alibi for a girlfriend. He avoided it whenever he could, but he'd been put on the spot twice, and found himself lying, and then feeling terribly guilty. Tami would be ashamed of him if she knew, but what was he supposed to do? The world was a messy place.

"I think you can stop grilling those up now." The Reverend approached and handed him a Coke. "Looks like people are tapering off on the eating."

Eric put the last of the burgers on a plate, covered it with foil, and closed up the grill. They both went and sat on the low brick wall that lined the courtyard and watched the frenzied egg hunt. "How's the old ticker doing?" Eric asked.

"My last EKG was satisfactory to my doctor. But now he wants me to stop eating both biscuits and grits."

"That's awful. Mrs. Hayes makes the best biscuits and gravy. And her cheesy grits? Man!"

"I know. He wants me to switch to _oatmeal_."

"Ewww." Eric shook his head.

"So are you looking forward to Tami transferring to UT-Austin in the fall?"

"Yes, sir. I'm very happy she got accepted." In fact, Eric had asked Tami to move in with him. He was in the dorms now, but he could get a housing allowance instead. He thought they should get an apartment somewhere in the fifteen miles between UT-Austin and TMU. That way they could have sex more often. But she'd said no. She wasn't going to live with a guy she wasn't married to, and they both needed their own _space to grow_ during college. He hadn't liked the sound of that. He didn't want _space to grow_. If they were going to be steady, he might as well have her in his bed every night.

"How's college treating you?" the Reverend asked. "You loving the life?"

The truth was, Eric was a little bit lonely. Even with the football comradery. Even with a roommate. Even with classrooms full of peers. Even at parties. He missed Tami, and he often wondered what she was up to at any given point of the day. Who was she hanging out with? What other guy, in a group of friends, might be making her laugh? "I'll like it better when Tami's in Austin."

"You have a lot of friends?"

"Some." He hung out with the guys from time to time, but Eric hadn't made a true, close friend in college, not like Jack. He missed Jack, too. They'd talked a couple times on the phone, and they'd just gotten together yesterday while Jack was in Rankin to see his family. Eric was surprised to learn that Jack was now dating girls casually, that he'd had sex with three different ones since starting college, and that he'd stopped going to mass. Eric didn't say much about it, but quietly he wondered why Jack would refuse to lose his virginity to his high school sweet heart only to go on to have sex with a girl he didn't even love, and why he'd also tossed his religion aside once he went to college. "College changes people," he muttered.

"Has it changed you?" the Reverend asked.

"Not that much. I mean, I'm having to study harder than I ever have before, and still not getting many As, so I'm learning I'm not as smart as I thought I was."

"You're smart. You just haven't spent this much time around other smart people before. Or been all that academically challenged."

"And I'm learning that I like public speaking. That's my one A this semester. I never thought I had much to say before, or that I'd be good at saying it if I did. I'm thinking I might want to be a sportscaster now."

"Instead of a coach?"

"Maybe. Or maybe both. Get a job with the local radio, you know, and maybe also coach part-time. But not teach. I'm thinking I may not be the best teacher after all. I hated the education class I took last semester. So much bullshit." It was a moment before he realized he'd cussed. "Excuse my language."

The Reverend smiled. "Well, you wouldn't be teaching _education_ , so once you plow through whatever classes you need to be certified, you can do what you like in your own classroom."

"To a point. That's changing. Less freedom for teachers these days, and I'm told it's only going to get worse. I'm not completely giving up the idea of teaching. I mean, it would be convenient, to coach and teach at the same school. But it's not the only idea I'm entertaining anymore. I might double major in P.E. and Communications, with an emphasis in Public Speaking."

"It's good to have options."

A child ran up and peeked over the wall, found nothing, and then ran off, his purple basket swaying in his hand.

"When I was talking about college changing people," Eric said. "I wasn't thinking of me. I was thinking of an old friend of mine. I'm not sure it's changed him for the better. And it's kind of unsettling, because I thought he knew _exactly_ who he was. I always admired him for that."

"None of us knows exactly who we are, Eric. But he'll figure it out in time. A lot of kids toss aside their old selves in college. They're not sure what's really them, and what was just their parent's expectations of them. But, in time, most of them figure out that they threw the baby out with the bathwater, and they gather the baby back up."

"I guess he could just be rebounding. His girlfriend dumped him right before college. If Tami had done that to me, I might have...I don't know."

"Sowed your wild oats?"

"I didn't say that." But that was precisely what he had been thinking. "I won't regret not having done that," he insisted, although he was not quite sure that was true. He wouldn't regret holding onto Tami, certainly, but that wasn't quite the same thing. A guy couldn't have his cake and eat it too.

"You probably will regret it, but only because there's a bit of the elder brother in all of us."

"A bit of the what?" Eric asked.

"In the parable of the prodigal son, the elder brother is jealous when his repentant brother returns, after his life of wild living, to be welcomed back into the family. The elder brother thinks to himself - here this kid's been out partying, enjoying himself, and now he gets to come right back. I never got to party."

Eric caught himself nodding and stopped.

"But then the father reminds him - you've always been here. You've always been with me. Your little brother's coming back, because he didn't find what was _right here_ all along. _You_ never lost it."

"Yeah, but I can get him being irritated when the dad kills the fated calf for his brother," Eric said, "when his dad had never done that for him, even though he was doing the right thing all along."

"Well, you know, the elder brother got to eat that fated calf too, assuming he stopped sulking and went inside to join the celebration. The parable doesn't tell us if he did or not. But back when his little brother was at rock bottom, eating from the pig's trow, the elder brother was still at home, warm and dry, by the father's fire, eating good food."

"Huh. Good point." Eric had heard that parable a dozen times in his life at various churches and had never thought of it quite like that. He wasn't missing anything, not when he had Tami.

The Reverend nodded toward the lawn. Eric looked up and saw Tami approaching with a smile. She stopped before Eric and kissed him quickly. "Am I interrupting anything?" she asked.

"Nah," Eric said, and patted the wall beside himself. When Tami sat, the Reverend stood.

"I think I need to go help your mother clean up in the fellowship hall. See you two back at the house. Sorry you're having to room with your sister, Tami."

"Well, it's better than making Eric sleep on the couch," she told him, and when he was out of ear shot, she said, "I'm sneaking into your bedroom tonight when everyone is asleep. I'm headed back to UT-Dallas tomorrow, and I probably won't see you again for two weeks, so don't tell me no."

"Tami, what if your dad wakes up?"

"I want an Easter treat, and I don't want it to be in the bed of your pick-up."

"Let's head back to our schools this evening."

"What? Neither of us has class on Easter Monday. Why would we do that? I want more time with you."

"We can just _say_ we're headed back. We can stay at a hotel outside of town tonight. My treat. And we can take our sweet time. And be as loud as we want. And sleep in. And then spend the afternoon together doing something fun. Without Shelley in tow."

She smiled and kissed him. "Sold."


	16. Chapter 16

Eric had not quite finished his sophomore year of college when he found himself back in the Reverend's study, looking at the spines of all those books. Eric had asked the Reverend to retreat to this sanctuary in order that he might speak to him privately. In fact, he'd driven all the way from Austin to Rankin for this very special conversation.

He drew his eyes from the spines of the books and met the Reverend's eyes. There was no tension between them at the moment. The Reverend was relaxed and merely seemed curious as to why Eric wanted to speak with him, and he wasn't sitting behind his desk this time. He'd pulled the chair out to sit across from Eric.

Eric wasn't particularly nervous, not like he had been that evening he'd been caught kissing Tami. It had been over two years since they began dating. He'd had plenty of interactions with the Hayes family over that time period.

"Reverend," Eric said deliberately. "I love your daughter."

"I gathered."

"Very much."

The Reverend smiled - a look of amusement and curiosity.

"And I'd like to ask you for her hand in marriage."

The Reverend stopped smiling. "How old are you, Eric?"

"I'm 20 now, sir."

"And how old is Tami?"

"She's 20 also."

"That's rather young to be getting married, don't you think?"

"You were young," Eric said defensively.

"Not that young. I was 24."

"Mrs. Hayes was only 19."

"She had turned 20 by the time we got married."

"Yeah, 20. Like Tami and I."

"Like Tami and _me_."

Eric was a bit flustered by the grammatical correction. He was beginning to think the Reverend did that sort of thing intentionally, with express purposes of throwing him off guard. He'd started this conversation feeling pretty confident of his reception, and now he was on edge.

"It's one of my pet peeves, when people use _I_ as an object. I know it's because they've been constantly corrected as children for using _me_ as the _subject_. That's an example of how over-correction can produce negative results."

"Umm. A'ight."

"May I ask you something, Eric?"

"Sure."

"Have you impregnated my daughter?"

"No, sir!" Eric exclaimed, although, in fact, he _had_. Tami estimated that she was about four weeks along.

"What's the rush, then, precisely?"

"We uh…she's at UT-Austin now."

"I'm aware. She's been there almost a year."

"And we thought…you know, it would be more economical for us to live together in family housing on my scholarship. So we thought we should get married the last weekend in May."

"That's not a lot of lead time to arrange everything."

"It'd just be a small wedding. In your church, of course. With you presiding...I mean, if you want. We'd be honored." Tami would be two months pregnant by then, and not likely showing. Maybe the baby would be late, and they could say it was premature, and neither set of parents would have to flip out. Or maybe all the parents would just be glad they were married at that point.

The Reverend put a hand beneath his chin. He studied Eric. "And what's your long-term plan, precisely? To provide for the baby?"

"Well, we're going to – " Eric stopped. He closed his mouth.

"Ah. So there _is_ a baby."

"Sir. Reverend. Sir – "

"Don't bullshit me, Eric. You know how I hate that."

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir, you won't bullshit me, or yes, sir, there _is_ a baby?"

"Tami's gonna be pissed off and think I told you," Eric grumbled.

"No, she won't. She knows her father. If you tell her I figured it out, she'll believe you."

Eric exhaled.

"So what's your plan?"

"The baby is due at the end of December. Tami will finish the first semester of her junior year at UT-Austin, ask to take her exams early, in case the baby comes early. She'll take a semester off to take care of the baby after it's born."

"She _will_ finish her education," the Reverend insisted. "You're not going to expect her to give that up, are you?"

"No, sir. She'd just take the one spring semester off, go back in the fall. She's been packing her schedule to graduate early and save money anyway. So she should be able to graduate the same time I do, even with that semester off."

"And when she does go back to school," the Reverend asked. "Who will care for the baby?"

"There's a campus daycare at my school. TMU has lots of married grad students. We'll plan our classes so we only have to use it two or three days a week."

"And what will you two do for income?"

"Tami thinks she can get some work proofreading papers, do that from home. I'll be coaching youth football camps during school breaks. I also got a job at the local radio station, doing their weekly sports recap on Sundays. And I'll apply for a part-time job at TMU's coffee shop. I'll work as much as I can."

"And how much _can_ you work, with football and school and a baby?"

"I'll do what I have to do. We'll figure it out. But housing is covered at least. Tuition is completely covered for me. Tami got that half tuition scholarship. And we'll learn to be economical."

"It won't be easy."

"I know that, sir."

"Mrs. Hayes and I will help when we can as we can, but I'm looking to leave the pastorate. I'll be starting from the bottom rung if I become a college instructor. We're going to lose the parsonage and start paying rent."

"We aren't asking anything of you," Eric assured him.

"I'm sure your parents will help too."

Eric nodded, although he thought his own father would probably tell him that if he was stupid enough to get married before he was "established," then he was on his own.

The Reverend Hayes sighed. Then a slow smile grew across his face. "I'm going to have a grandchild. This is going to be fun."

"Does…uh…this mean I have your blessing to marry Tami?"

"Well, if such a happy accident had to occur, I'm glad it was with you instead of that Mo fellow. Although you _should_ have been using birth control."

"We were, actually."

"Well…we may make our plans," the Reverend said, "but God has the last word."

"Tami didn't want her mom to know she's pregnant."

"Well, she _has_ to know if _I_ know. I can't keep that from my wife."

"Tami's really afraid of how she going to react."

"I'll deal with her mother. I have a lot of experience in that realm." The Reverend stood. "What do you say we go down to Taylor's and continue this conversation?"

"Taylor's?" Eric asked.

"The new owner kept the name, since your father had already established a reputation."

"My dad's not going to like that when he finds out."

"He didn't trademark it. Not much he can do."

Eric rose to follow his soon-to-be father-in-law.


	17. Chapter 17

Little in the décor of Taylor's had been altered, and all of the same games were there. Eric's father had sold the place with everything in it. One thing had changed, however – the uniforms. The waitresses had gone from black, knee-length skirts and white button-down shirts to very short jean shorts and very tight tank tops.

"I'm surprised your wife lets you in this place," Eric said, averting his eyes from the twenty-something girl who had just bounced cheerfully away from their high table after taking their drink orders.

"She doesn't know about the uniforms."

"You didn't _tell_ her about the uniforms," Eric said with a smirk.

"I don't come here for the girls half my age, I assure you. Besides, these ladies have to make a living. I'm just doing my part to assist in their economic advancement."

Eric chuckled.

The Reverend smiled and said, "In all seriousness, I'd prefer a place more like the one your father ran. But the thing about bars is that – much like churches – they can be hospitals for the sick. It's just…the sick aren't always getting the best medicine in bars. So I like to hang out. Talk to people."

"Witness?" Eric asked.

"If we want to get all church talky, yes…I suppose. But I try to listen more than I talk."

The waitress returned and set a pint down in front of the Reverend and a root beer in front of Eric.

"I thought you weren't drinking anymore," Eric said.

"His wife lets him have two a _week_ ," the waitress told him. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "But he drinks _three_."

Eric made a tsking sound and shook his head.

"So sorry you can't drink, honey," she told Eric. "I don't know who those Feds think they are, sticking their noses in a Texan's business, telling us what the drinking age should be."

"It's a'ight," Eric told her.

"They should have at least grandfathered you in when that law passed. I mean, you can go off and die in the war, but you can't have a drink?"

"The war?" the Reverend asked. "What war?"

"There's always some kind of war going on, isn't there?" she asked. "Somewhere?"

The Reverend smiled faintly and said, "Can we get some of those cheese fries, too?"

"Oh, honey, your wife is going to scold you if you eat those. That's heart attack food, darling." She patted his shoulder. "I'll bring you the vegetables and spinach dip." And off she went.

Eric laughed.

The Reverend frowned. "As you can see, there's little temptation for me here." He took a sip of his beer and set it down. "I imagine the same can't be said for you though, at TMU."

Eric's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you played very well your last two seasons. You're the first string quarterback now. And you're a good-looking fellow. That's got to result in a lot of female attention."

Eric turned his root beer bottle on the table and shrugged. "Sure. Some. But everyone knows I have a serious girlfriend. And pretty soon they're going to know I have a wife."

"It must be flattering, though. All those girls, wishing you _didn't_ have a girlfriend."

"You jealous of me?" Eric asked with a smile.

"Eric, may I be blunt?"

"You've never asked my permission before."

Now the Reverend pushed his pint aside. "A baby is _hard_ work."

"I know that."

"No, you don't. Tami is going to be tired. She's going to feel drained. She might be irritable. The bulk of her attention is going to shift from _you_ to the _baby_ , at least for a while. Maybe a good while."

Eric shifted on his chair. He didn't like the sound of that. "I know that," he said, but he hadn't really thought about it until now. He knew the sex would probably take a temporary nose dive, but he'd weathered the long distance that first year, and when they had come together, they'd been eager and the sex had been fantastic. But he hadn't really thought about the over-all _attention_ factor. He hadn't really thought about the fact that Tami was going to have to divide her affection.

"No you don't _know_ that," the Reverend assured him. "No man really _knows_ that until he's there. And a lot of them aren't prepared for it. When there are children under five in the household – those are the years a man is most likely to cheat."

"I'm not a cheater!" Eric lowered his voice. "I would never cheat on Tami."

"You're a loyal, honorable young man, Eric. I'm not suggesting otherwise. But there's a reason the Bible tells us to _flee_ from temptation. Don't stand around and flirt with it – don't even stand around and fight it, but just get the hell away from it."

"What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that it's very easy for you to feel no temptation now, while you're still the center of Tami's world, and she's full of energy. But that's going to change. And you need to be aware of the fact. So that you can continue to be the loyal and honorable young man that you _are_."

Eric gritted his teeth together. "I can't believe you think I would ever cheat."

"I _don't_ think you will."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

"Because this is _how_ you don't cheat. If you go through the world dead certain that you can never fall, you might not even notice a stumbling block until it's right under your foot."

"Is this some kind of projection?" Eric asked. "Is that what they call it? In psychology? Tami said y'all were in marriage counseling for a while."

"I have never cheated on my wife, Eric. But I'd be liar if I said there was never a time when I wasn't tempted. And it disturbed me when I was, because I imagined I was too honorable to feel that much temptation, and that if I felt it at all, I must have made a mistake in marrying my wife. And maybe that will never happen to you, but in twenty years of ministry – I've learned it happens to _most_ men, at some point in their marriages. And too many of them fall."

Eric shook his head. "We had a long-distance relationship for a year and I wasn't ever tempted to cheat. I love her."

"I know you do. But you're about to experience a sea change in your relationship. It can't hurt you to be _aware_ of the possibility that even you have your own vulnerabilities. It can never hurt to guard yourself against temptation."

"A'ight! I will!" Eric wanted off this topic, as fast as possible. He was shaking his head when the waitress put the vegetables and dip on the table.

"You irritating this poor, adorable, boy, Reverend?" the waitress asked. "He looks grumpy."

"It's my job to make him look grumpy. He's going to be my son-in-law soon."

"Oh! Wow. But you're not even 21."

"I'm twenty," Eric said.

"Locking yourself up early, huh?" She flashed him a flirtatious smile. "I bet a lot of girls are going to be _very_ disappointed." She shook her head and walked off.

"I'm sorry if I offended you, Eric," the Reverend told him, "but I say what's on my mind."

"Yeah. Clearly."

"And Tami tends to do that, too. So you better get used to it."

"Oh, I'm already used to it. Sort of." He chuckled. "Reverend, listen, I really love Tami. I'm not sure you understand how much I love her."

"I know you do. And I know you're a good kid. And I'm honored that you're going to be my son-in-law."

"Yeah?" Eric wished his own father had ever said anything like that, that he was _honored_ to be his father.

"Of course." He raised his pint. "To my future son-in-law, to my daughter, and to a long and happy life together."

Eric raised his root beer bottle, and when the glass clinked, he grinned.


	18. Chapter 18

Little Julie was wailing like a banshee when the Reverend stopped by the family housing apartment. Eric was home alone with the three-month-old baby because Tami was at the admissions office trying to figure out the details of a scholarship she'd been awarded for UT-Austin beginning in the fall semester. She wasn't taking any classes this spring.

When Eric opened the door for the Reverend, it seemed Julie's screaming turned up a notch. "I can't get her to stop," Eric told him.

The Reverend walked to their storage closet, opened it, and took out the vacuum. He plugged in the vacuum and said, "Give her here." He cradled her in one arm like a football, if footballs wailed, and then lowered the handle of the vacuum cleaner.

"We keep it pretty clean in here," Eric told him, a little insulted by his father-in-law's immediate need to tidy.

The Reverend turned on the vacuum and moved it back and forth about the living room with Julie tucked in his arm. She stopped crying. It was less than sixty seconds, and she stopped crying. In ninety more, she had fallen asleep.

The Reverend turned off the vacuum. Eric was deadly silent, for fear she would awake. "Crib?" the Reverend mouthed, and Eric led him to it in their bedroom, at the foot of their bed. They were discussing where to put her as she got older. They only had one bedroom, but they had a study alcove, off of the hall. It would likely become the nursery. They'd have to gate it off somehow once she was crawling out of the crib.

When Julie was settled in her crib, Eric offered his father-in-law a beer.

"I'll have one," the Reverend said. "But just one. And don't tell my wife."

They both cracked open the cans with a hiss after slumping on the couch and putting their feet up on the coffee table.

"Tami lets you do this?" the Reverend asked. "My wife doesn't."

"Well…Tami's not here right now."

Eric's father-in-law chuckled. "You look like you just crawled out of the sixth circle of hell."

"I'm working like a dog. I've got five classes, spring football, work, and I'm also coaching this Sunday afternoon youth camp. They've got me working with the third and fourth graders. Those kids are all energy. And I've picked up some tutoring for extra money too. And then Julie wakes up twice a night still! Tami handles that, thank God, but it still wakes me up for a little bit."

"What happened to the local sportscasting thing?"

"They want me to interview people. I hate that. I can talk about the games...but I don't want to have to interview people."

The Reverend chuckled. "So the plan's back to coaching and teaching, then?"

Eric nodded.

"But you're still going to play ball in the fall?" Reverend asked. "Because Tami told me you were thinking of quitting."

"Is that why you came all the way out here?" Eric asked suspiciously. He'd called and said he was _in the area_ and then asked if he could _drop by_.

" _Are_ you thinking of quitting?"

"Spring football is light, and I can barely keep up. In fall...I just don't know how I'll have time to work, study, and play. Something has to give."

"What about your scholarship?" the Reverend asked.

"You know Tami just got a full academic scholarship that would cover family housing. We'd just have to move to the UT campus. And my advisor says at this point I can get tuition and fees covered at TMU based on my grades and financial need if I decide to quit football."

"And that's what you want?"

"I'll have a lot more time to work if I'm not playing football. I got offered a job as an assistant coach at this junior high in Austin this fall. They won't pay much, a small stipend, but it'll be something. I can get started, have some real experience by the time I graduate. Not like these little kid camps. And then I can work weekends doing personal training at the gym a couple miles away. They offered me a job. That would all bring in more money than I'm making now."

The Reverend shook his head. "Can't you take a lower course load and keep playing? Spread out your college education over five years instead of four? Tami said you only have to take 6 hours a term to keep your football scholarship, but 15 for an academic one."

"Yeah, but I need to finish college as soon as possible and get a _full-time_ job. I have a family to provide for."

"Tami will be finishing on schedule, even with the semester off. She can work full-time while you're still in school."

Eric laughed and then realized the Reverend was serious. "And support _me_?" It was a concept that would horrify his father, and, frankly, it horrified Eric a little bit too.

"My wife put me through my last year of graduate school. I would have had to quit if she weren't working full-time as a secretary and part-time as a pianist that last year to support us. There's nothing _unmanly_ in it, Eric."

Eric winced. He hadn't meant to insult his father-in-law. "I didn't...I wasn't suggesting..."

"Don't give up football. This may be the last time you ever really play. You'll regret it if you walk away early."

"That's what my dad says, except that's because he _still_ thinks I might get noticed by the NFL. But I think I have to quit. I really need to have more time to provide for my family."

"Don't use that as an excuse."

"An excuse?" Eric asked, eyes widened with surprise. "For what?"

"For your fear of disappointing your father. If you stop playing because of your family, well, then, that's why you didn't get drafted to the NFL. Not because you failed as a football player, right?"

Eric gritted his teeth. "That's not why at all," he lied. "I'm trying to be a man here."

"Well that's admirable, Eric, but you've got years and years ahead of you to be a man. This might be your last chance to be a boy."

Eric held his cool beer can in his hands and turned it, the condensation wetting his fingertips. "I do love football," he said. "I do love to play. I want to coach, but..."

"You know I'm right."

Eric bit his bottom lip.

"Don't let your fears - your fear of letting your father down - your fear of his criticism if you rely financially on Tami for a year - don't let that make you give up what _you_ want."

Eric found himself nodding. "Well, I'll consider your advice. You know I respect your opinion. Although you didn't have to come all the way to Austin to give it. You could have picked up the phone."

"You know I came to Austin to see my grandbaby. And for one other reason too."

"What's that?" A sudden panic seized Eric. "You a'ight? You didn't have another heart attack, did you?"

"If I did, would I look this spry?"

Eric smiled.

"The tickers still ticking. I came out here for an interview. The head of TMU's religious studies department read an article I wrote on psychology and the church fathers. Apparently, it impressed him. They're considering me for an associate professor's position. If I get the job, I'll be teaching a class called Psychology and Theological Foundations as well as one on Christian Counseling Methods and Techniques, and they'll let me finish up my doctorate too. I started a Ph.D. program after my master's but had to quit when I got the call to be an associate pastor. And Linda was pregnant with Tami too. It didn't seem like a good time to be in school."

"Tell me about it."

"You two will make do. And if I get this job...Linda and I will be nearby to help with babysitting."

"You're really going to be a professor? At my school?" Eric asked.

"I wasn't aware you owned the school, but, yes, if I get the job. An associate professor."

Eric supposed it was good Tami was majoring in psychology at UT-Austin rather than TMU. That could be weird, having your father be one of the professors in your department. "Well, congratulations."

"I don't have the job yet, but I do think I'll get it. The interview went surprisingly well."

Eric was glad to think his in-laws would be nearby, for the help they could provide, and because he actually enjoyed the Reverend's company. He was largely indifferent to his mother-in-law. He couldn't relate to her, but she seemed to like him well enough, and she knew the way to his heart through her fantastic cooking. Unfortunately, though, she could really get on Tami's nerves. And when Mrs. Hayes got on Tami's nerves, Tami was less pleasant to be around. Then there was Shelley to consider. Dear God. Shelley. That girl was as flaky and as boy crazy and as talkative as they came, and she seemed to delight in ridiculing Eric. How she had sprung from the same loins as Tami, Eric did not know. "Shelley...she's not coming with you though, is she? She'll be going off to college?"

"I had hoped she would, but she keeps talking about taking a year off to work and explore her interests and figure out what she wants to major in. We said she could live with us next year, if she needs to - but then she's out on her own, either in college, or working to pay for her own place."

"Huh. So she'll be in Austin then? If you get the job."

The Reverend smiled. "Your wife came with a family Eric. Our relatives are not always what we wish them to be, but we love them anyway, and we wish the best for them. And there's more to Shelley than meets the eye."

Eric didn't ask what that more might be. He didn't think the Reverend could convince him if he tried. So he just said, "You get rid of that boyfriend of hers yet?" She'd been dating a nineteen year old high school drop out, which had given Tami the heebie jeebies and almost given the Reverend a second heart attack.

"He took off of his own accord. She was heart broken at first, but now she's looking forward to finding a more sophisticated Austin fellow."

"Sophisticated. Yeah...a lot of pretense around here anyway."

"You don't like Austin?" the Reverend asked.

Eric shrugged. "I like a medium-sized town. Big enough where everyone's not in your business all the time, but small enough where you can still belong, you know?"

"Having a child can be an isolating experience. Which is all the more reason for you to stay on the team - to have that connection."

Eric nodded. "I hear you. I do." He knew already that he was going to take the Reverend's advice. He wanted to play, but he also wanted to do the grown-up thing. The Reverend telling him it was all right to play...that stamp of approval...it was what he needed. And perhaps he'd needed he swift kick in the ass to push past his fear of disappointing his father, too.

A cry erupted from the bedroom. Eric sighed. "I thought she was down for an hour." He looked desperately at his father-in-law. "It gets better, right?" he asked.

"Well...it changes," the Reverend said with a smirk. " _New_ things exhaust you."


	19. Chapter 19

The sun shone merrily in a sky like a powder-blue Easter egg. One lone, fluffy white cloud floated dreamily, seeming to form a smile.

The scene was all wrong to Eric.

Overcast skies would have been more appropriate, a threat of rain, a gray grumbling, perhaps of thunder, angry wind, and shadows.

The Reverend would have disagreed, Eric knew. He would have said something about how the end is a beginning, about spring and new life, about resurrection.

But Eric wanted rain, and not the rays of the sun, to be bathing his face as he bore the heavy wooden casket on one sore shoulder, with the Reverend's nephews flanking him.

[*]

Tami had disappeared into the bowels of the house. The Hayes had bought one half of a duplex in Austin after the Reverend got the job at TMU. Eric wasn't sure if his mother-in-law would be able to pay the mortgage now, but he supposed the Reverend had made plans for his death. He'd been sicker than he let on to Tami or Eric or Shelley, but Ms. Hayes seemed less shocked than any of them by his demise. Eric supposed they'd have to have some serious conversations about the future - whether Shelley would move back in with her mother, or Ms. Hayes would live alone, or whether she would come with Eric and Tami Odessa when he started his new job.

He glanced out the window as he searched for his wife, and spied Julie laughing and toddling her way across the lush green spring grass to her Aunt Shelley. For once he was grateful for his sister-in-law's presence. She must be mourning herself, but her exuberance was only slightly dulled; she made the perfect match for a little girl who did not fully understand all the weeping and long faces.

Eric found Tami in the guest bedroom, curled on top of the comforter, and crying. He crawled atop the bed behind her and held her close and wished he had some useful thing to say.

After lying there for some time, the weight of it all began to press down upon him, like some ancient torture device. He'd been stoic through the viewing in the funeral, striving with all he had to be an anchor for Tami, but now something snapped. The tears flowed, not like Tami's choking sobs - but a silent stream.

Tami turned in his arms, placed a hand on his cheek, and stopped crying herself. Her bewildered blue eyes studied the shimmering pools of his own. "Eric?" she asked softly.

"I loved him, too, you know," he managed. "I loved him, too."

Tami bit her lip and drew his head down against her chest, where she cradled him. In the tenderness of her embrace, he unraveled.

[*]

Eric came to the grave early, before anyone else was awake, beneath the mating songs of morning birds, for one final conversation.

He stood with his hands wedged in the pockets of his khakis and looked at the letters etched on gray stone - _beloved husband and father._

"I didn't get to tell you," he said, "but I got that assistant coaching job. We'll be moving to Odessa after Tami finishes up her counseling contract at Sam Houston High. It took me five years, but I'm done with college. Done playing ball. It's my turn to support her full-time now. She's going to stay home for a couple years now, until Julie's in school full-time."

He wondered if the Reverend would approve of that plan, but the man couldn't offer his opinion now.

"Listen, I want you to know...I'm gonna make sure your daughter is a'ight. And your granddaughter. I'm going to love them with everything that's in me. And I'll make sure your wife and Shelley are a'ight, too. So you don't have to worry about any of that. Not that I guess there's anymore worries where you are now."

He felt suddenly silly, talking to a stone, but he didn't stop just yet. "Some people call their father-in-laws Dad. I never did do that. Reverend always seemed respectful. But you were like a father to me, when I most needed one, and I wish I had thanked you for that."

Eric bit down on his back teeth and breathed in and out to make sure he didn't start crying. "I sure am going to miss you, Reverend. I'd expected you to stick around a lot longer. I planned for us to have many more conversations. Hell, I just bought TMU season tickets. Thought I'd come back to Austin every now and then, take you to a game."

There was a quiet woosh of wind, and white blossoms fluttered past the grave, and Eric heard, in the quiet echo of memory, one of the Reverend's favorite phrases:

 _"We may make our plans, but God has the last word."_

Tomorrow was Easter, and for the first time in years, Eric would not hear the Reverend cry, "He is risen!"

But Eric would still sit beside the Reverend's daughter, and beside his granddaughter too; he would be sandwiched in the legacy the Reverend had left, a legacy of love. And the Son would still rise.

 **THE END**


End file.
